Native cane carved in Aspen

[Colin-Partridge]

When I attended the WCI Open House a couple of years ago I met Don (Don By the Lake) we chatted and he went to his truck a got me a piece of wood and gave it to me to carve. I asked him what it was and he told me Aspen. I had never carved it before. I promised him I would carve it and here I am two years later carving the staff. The staff is about 6 feet long. I will post some of the designs on this and the next post. These are not all the symbols just a few. What I did was carve the staff in the Haida style but all of the symbols are modified so that they are not the same as the true native symbols. Most of the Haida art is done in Red,White, and Black. I have about 50 hours into the staff so far. All the symbols are carved into the staff and I have one coat of paint on it so far. I intend to put a few more coats of paint and then stain the staff and finally varathane it. I want to emphasize that this is my interpretation and by no means the true symbols of the Haida people who I have the upmost respect for.
Colin

[Colin-Partridge]

Here are some more

[MelNM]

Very neat Colin, when you said native cane, It was funny because automatically I was thinking of the Native Americans of the Southwest.

I like to carve walking sticks from Aspen also, I have one I am doing for my son-in-law I need to finish. I did do a kind of native American walking stick for my wife a while back maybe I'll post it.

Thanks for showing your latest walking sticks I like them.
Mel

[Iowa Carver]

Cool stick Colin! Nice job and painting is great!

Corey

[Lightningbolt]

I've heard a lot of good things about aspen but there's not too much (none) in North Carolina that I know of. Nice job on the cane and glad that you finally got around to it.

[tucker1931]

Colin, that's some piece of work, sure looks great to me. If you were to come down to Caledonia right about now you would probably get sworn in as a real Injun with a stick like that.