Part seven of our eight part interview with Conrad Hartz. Today we talk about carving. For years, I carved wine barrel heads and hand carved Santas. Today my performing career keeps me out of my carving studio, so I was fascinated by Conrad’s description of his work.
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Video Transcript:
now are you uh going to be getting up to
ven Haven this year or I hope so Mark
has uh asked me to get up there and uh I
I haven’t been since
2004 and I need to get back up there um
you know uh see everybody and stuff like
that I’m getting older and things like
that and but uh yeah I’m try to get
there this summer well that would be
great I’d love to meet you I’ve you
heard so much about you and uh you know
admired your work so it would be very
nice to meet you in person oh yeah you
too so well Conrad I’m not going to hold
you up any longer than that um what I’m
doing with this uh I’m going to put it
together as a video with an audio track
would it be could I have your permission
to use uh some of your photos of your
fig
pictures of you okay fantastic cuz
that’s what I’ll do I’ll overlay some
pictures of you and your your puppets
and I think there was one of you at the
Irish Festival so I’ll put that up when
you’re talking about that okay and uh
and you can look you can look on
Facebook uh in the um I think it’s on
the Conrad Hartz puppets in the photo
section and probably see things like my
famous
little uh 2ot long
by uh 18 in wide bench that I have used
for 34 years and that VI Bill Boley said I
don’t believe this he thought I had a an
elaborate 10 foot long bench that had
all kind of um you know uh vices and
things like that and I just sit on a
little tiny bench and put the head
against a piece of board and bang away
now okay while we’re talking about that
if you don’t mind if you’ve got a couple
minutes um I’d like to ask you some
questions when I carve I’ve got a u um
oh gosh I don’t even know how to
describe this table but the top will
shift itself it pivots it rotates uh cuz
I would put these big barrel heads on it
you know they’re they’re with the staves
around them they’re like 24 in in
diameter um so you’re how how are you
are you just literally using friction to
hold that head in place while you’re
carving it no I’ve got a wooden uh it’s
actually the bench is like 5 in thick
Oak slab okay it’s only 24 in long and
it’s about 18 in wide and what I do on
one end of the bench I cut I take a head
and I draw a little semicircle like the
top of the head right okay a half the
head the front half and then I cut out a
piece of Basswood in that semicircle
straight across the top but cut out the
semicircle at the bottom the shape of a
normal head and then I nail that strip
of
semicircle at one end of the bench I set
my butt on the other end of the
bench I put that head against that
semicircle and then I bang away on the
head and that holds the head dead still
hm
and a lot of times I’ll use my knees to
hold ahead and use smaller xacto
tools to do some fine carving you know
MH but uh nothing else no
big uh exotic table or nothing like that
and that’s what Bill buy could not
understand wow he he said this is
amazing that that sound come down and
see a little tiny twoot little foot
bench
Next Article: An Interview With Conrad Hartz – Part 8
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Start of Interview: An Interview With Conrad Hartz – Part One
I learned a great deal about ventriloquism just recently from a documentary that includes some of the biggest starts today – “I’m No Dummy” – Jeff Dunham, Jay Johnson, Mallory Lewis, and even the legendary Jimmy Nelson appear with clips of their performances. It captivated my attention!