Welcome to my father's wood carving page!
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K. G. (Gus) Gerdin's picture along with a few of his carvings and tools.
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My father was born in Sweden in 1904 and came to this country in 1922 at the age of 17. When he retired from Northern States Power Company in 1970, he started carving. Many of his subjects were characters he knew as he was growing up in the old country. All these were carved between 1970 and his
death in 1994, except for that of Charles Atlas. These
carvings were all done in hardwood, so they would hold the detail. The lightest wood is apple, the orange wood is birch, and the dark wood is walnut.
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Gus Gerdin and his carving of Jesus
which he gave to Rev. Glenn Peterson
of Duluth, MN in 1988.
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This is a watercolor version of the photo shown
above that I just completed. I call it 'Gus'
and it is 16.5" x 19.5". This painting won an
"honorable mention" at the Cape Henry Show of
the Chesapeake Bay Watercolorists Society. This
may not sound like much, but there were many
superb paintings at that show that the artists
received no awards.
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Three views of Gus' carving of a businessman
in his hometown of Torsby (Thor's town) in the
Swedish Province of Vaermland.
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Three views of Gus' carving of Charles Atlas,
who was a famous in the 1920's for feats of
strength such as pulling a railroad car single-
handed. This was carved sometime in the 1930's.
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Three views of Gus' carving of a middle-aged
Swedish couple. My mother, Ethel, painted the
carving when he finished.
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Three views of Gus' carving of a dancer from an
advertizement he found in a magazine.
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Three views of Gus' carving of his grandfather
(farfar or father's father) in his Sunday suit.
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Three views of Gus's carving of his farfars head.
His farfar worked in the woods making charcoal
for a local lumber mill which was very dirty work.
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Three views of Gus' carving of his mother (my farmor
or father's mother) beating the water out of some
clothes in the process of doing the wash. It was
better than beating them on the rocks by the lake,
but barely.
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Four views of Gus' carving of me when I was in my
late twenties. I wish I actually looked that good!
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Three views of Gus' carving of a mountain goat.
You can see one of the goats ears has broken off
in the course of the years.
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Three views of Gus' carving of my cousin Mait's
husband Henning Nilsson putting hay on a rack to
dry. This the way they dried hay in Sweden
when my dad was a kid in the 1910's and up until
the 1970's when he took a picture of Henning.
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Three view of Gus' carving of an icefisherman. A
common sight on the lakes of Minnesota where my
parents lived.
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Three views of Gus' carving of a man's head. I hope
I wasn't the subject.
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Three views of Gus' carving of him and my mother
from a photo taken in the 1950's (except for the
flower part!) on their silver anniversary.
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Three views of Gus' carving of a Swedish man of
the early 1900's holding a hot drink (coffee of
course!).
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Three views of Gus' carving of Mr. Jingles who was
a homeless man living in Minneapolis in the 1970's
and 80's, who made his living collecting aluminum
cans for recycle, picking them up with a long pointed
tool as pictured. From a picture in the Minneapolis
Star-Tribune.
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Three views of Gus' carving of a Torsby man about
to place some 'snus' (Swedish snuff) in his mouth.
This became very popular in Sweden during the 1800's and it still is. The Swedish immigrants were
so thick along Cedar Ave. in Minneapolis in the early
1900's that it was known as 'Snus Boulevard.'
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Three views of Gus' carving of an 'obaeck' from a
root he found in Florida. It is mostly the root except
for some eyes and teeth (see center view). An obaeck
was a forest or swamp spirit haunting those venues
in Sweden when he was a kid. Christianity my have
removed the belief in the major Norse gods (Thor, Odin, and Fre) but belief in the little spirits survived,
including elves, fairies, and leprechans (the latter
called 'tomte' in Swedish). An example of a tomte
is to be found in Selma Lagerloef's 'Nils Holgerson's
Wonderful Trip Around Sweden'.
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Three views of Gus' carving of his parents as they
might have looked in the late 1890's before my
grandfather (farfar) got sick (diabetes). He died in
1906 when my dad was 1.5 years old. While they
someone with horses and a reaper for hay which took
up maybe 10 of their total of 20 acres of farmable
land, for the smaller crops of oats, rye, and some-
times wheat he used a scythe. The rake was made
entirely of wood with wooden pins for the teeth
which had to be replaced when they broke which
happened frequently. My dad got a lot of experience
with these tools when he was growing up.
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Two views of Gus' carving of a pelican.
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Four views of Gus' carving of Pipi Longstocking.
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Three views of Gus' carving of a little old lady
scolding a bum sitting on a parkbench. Reminds
me of scene in Loring Park in Minneapolis in the
early 1950's. My mother Ethel painted the carving.
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Two views of Gus' carving of a seahorse.
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Three views of Gus' carving of a man's head. I think
it is a television character commedian from the 1970's whose name escapes me.
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Three views of Gus' carving of one of his childhood friends in Sweden, who became a school teached in
Torsby, when the photo used as a subject for this carving was taken.
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Three views of Gus' carving of Gustav Vasa the
founder of modern Sweden. Here, Vasa is in the
town of Mora in the province of Dalarna (the valleys)
trying to get the peasants to rise up and remove their
Danish overlords. He was unsucessful so he had to
flee toward Norway on skis to escape the Danes. His
trip is commemorated in the 'Vasaloppet', a long
cross-country skirace between the Norwegian border
and Mora held in February every year.
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Three views of Gus' carving of a Viking defending his
ship from borders. Gus researched the clothing,
helmet and weapon and came up with this pose.
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Three views of Gus' carving of a Viking head, possibly
a study for the previous carving.
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Three views of Gus' carving of Winston Churcill.
Copied from a similar carving we brought during
our trip to Sweden in the summer of 1961. It was
my father's first trip back to the old country in
over 39 years.
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Three views of Gus' carving of a young man. I would
like to think I was the inspiration for this one (dream
on!).
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