James Buxton at his Birch Street Studio
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The process of getting the long ash strips for weaving is laborious and takes skill.
In these photos, the ash log is pounded along its length with a mallet, causing the outer wood to be crushed and the inner wood to be separated so that it can be peeled off in long strips.
In these photos, the ash log is pounded along its length with a mallet, causing the outer wood to be crushed and the inner wood to be separated so that it can be peeled off in long strips.
James Buxton of Bristol is a full-time multi-media artist specializing in ironwork, traditional ash basket weaving and wood sculpture. In fact, over the last two decades or so, his songbird carvings ─ more than 500 of them and counting ─ have been shipped all over the world.
Referring to his background as "gypsy-like", he travels the local show circuit every summer (e.g. the Golden Unicorn Festival) and has participated in the annual Paint the Heartland event for nine years. His work is available at the Woodstock Farm Market and he also participated in the McCain Art Gallery’s “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” show in 2014.
You’ve referred to yourself as the bird man, the basket man and the rose man. Where shall we start today?
Let’s start with the bird sculptures. I've been doing those for 25 years now. My first carving was of a nuthatch and it sold immediately. I was surprised. Squirrels, mice, they all sold even though, at first, they were quite primitive.
Well, these birds certainly are not primitive now. Does practice make perfect?
There’s quite a lot of trial and error but I picked up technique as I went along and from magazines or books about carving songbirds. I also bought the right equipment.
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This life-like cardinal is all the evidence one needs
to explain the success of Buxton’s songbird sculptures.
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First I draw the bird on paper ─ side profile, maybe two other views. Then I go to work on a piece of wood with a band saw. I remove all the wood that I don’t want and there’s a bird left.
You’re kidding.
Well, there is the hand finishing using a high-powered rotary tool and the feathers that are burned-in with a very fine pin. Everything has to be just right.
What do you get the most requests for?
Chickadees. But at Paint the Heartland this summer, everyone wanted mourning doves and I took orders for three of them.
How did you get into steel work?
I had been making small metal flowers for my bird sculptures for years. I got a little tired of birds and so I moved on to the “black roses” series which had been in the back of my mind for a while. I made a few mirrors framed with the black roses and some people were shocked by the price but the one that I had at the McCain Gallery sold in less than a week.
You make all kinds of baskets and teach basket making as well.
I've been doing baskets for seventeen years on and off. I learned to do it from a friend who was a woodsman. I buy the ash logs locally and ninety percent of the work is in preparing the wood. Weaving is quite simple.
What’s on your schedule for the next few months?
I've got lots of work to finish between now and spring. Seventeen bird orders. I’m also working on some “hotel art” right now and, sometime, I would really like to try glass blowing.
My first wood carving of any kind was an eight-foot totem pole.
My first wood carving of any kind was an eight-foot totem pole.
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Buxton with students Debbie Thomas (centre) and Maria Wybenga during a recent basket weaving workshop at the McCain Art Gallery in Florenceville NB.
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