Dale Hanson

It was like that for 20 years.

And basically I raised the family on carving and I still carve.

It's been great.

And with everything, there's little anecdotes

that you can pick up in life.

It's like I see people that do carvings with ivory.

And I look at the carvings, and they're not necessarily good.

He's got some years to go.

But I look at it, and what's going to happen?

and it does happen, is that the media, the ivory carries over poor work.

So people desperately want an ivory carving.

And if anything, the store can say, it's primitive art, and excuse the poor carving.

And so that works.

And I can sell things that way.

But when I started doing wood, I did soapstone, and I actually started doing bronze and silver, pewter, all the cast pieces too, and about 250 casts.

But when I started doing...

the wood carving, my greatest gratification was there, because I'm starting with something that is intrinsically worthless.

You burn it in your stove and so forth.

And I take this thing, and it's only what I do to that that makes a difference, that makes someone want it.

And that is the gratification I get on the carving.