Philip Costello

"I guess in my particular case, the wood sculpture would be more of a definition of what I do. A traditional wood carver uses chisels and gouges only that are very specific. I've found that using some electric tools and sanding, I can sometimes bring the piece to the point that I like. So I'm more of a wood sculptor than I am a wood carver so to speak. A traditionalist would be a wood carver, I'm a wood sculptor. I've always been intrigued since a young child, I've always enjoyed drawing. My grandmother was a tremendous drawer and painter, my Dad loved to draw and I love to draw. I've always wanted to carve but of course, life gets in the way of so many things and work and life and children and families and that sort of thing but was able to retire early. I said you know when I retire, which was proximately nine years ago, I'm going to start carving and I've been carving ever since," said Phil Costello.

Phil and his wife had a store in Maine where they sold beach decor and home furnishings. The manager at Cliff House, Nancy White, came to their store to buy some of their product at one time when they were doing some renovation at the Cliff House. She saw Phil at the studio and she said, "I'd like you to do a seven-foot carving for us for our Discovery Center." And Phil said "a seven-foot carving is an awful large carving. Nancy, said, "I just like some height, because I'd like it to be a focal point in the middle of Discovery Center." A beautiful whale that Phil crafted now sits in this space and it's a beautiful piece especially when the daylight shines in through the windows and hits it perfectly showing its beautiful markings. He absolutely loves what he does and the craft seems so simple yet it can be challenging.

"Okay, first and most importantly, what are we going to design on? What is our design, what's our sculpture going to be? Sometimes we'll even do it in clay to kind of get a handle on what we think is best. And once we get a good idea as to what we want to sculpt or what we want to carve in the design and then we decide on the wood. There are probably half a dozen woods that are used for carving. There are a few that I've kind of prioritized over the years. Mahogany is one of the best woods to carve because it's very hard. It's very dense. It's got beautiful grain, but because it's very hard and very dense it's very difficult to carve and it's also very hard on your tools you have to sharpen more often. The other woods that you'd use would be butter, not basswood, I use a lot of Spanish cedar spanish. Cedar is a little bit lighter than mahogany, but darker than basswood, which are butternut, which is very light-colored wood. And it's got some beautiful grains to it. But most importantly, it's very soft. So the selection of wood would be the first one. And then what I would do is quite often when I design I try to bring my design in proportion to whatever I'm trying to design. Right now I'm working on an eagle. Obviously, I don't have a six-foot wings spread, but the eagle that I'm working on now is a four-foot wings spread. So then you have to proportionate correctly. Problem is when you're doing a large carving it is very difficult if not impossible to find a large piece of wood. So what you have to do is buy wood I buy it actually rough sawn, I then have a shop where I bring it down to edge. What I do is glue the blocks together in the form of the shape of what the carving is going to be starting with tools to take the major wood away what we call boasting or taking the larger pieces away till we get a rough, rough idea of what the actual carving is. And then we started with the finer tools to bring it down and hone it to the shape and size and detail that we want. That's basically it. And then most importantly, which I sometimes have a challenge with is the finishing of it is as good a woodcarver as I like to be or, or progressing towards, I still haven't perfected the art of finishing. So either my wife who is a painter, and finisher, or I'll bring it to a finishing shop and let them do the finish coat on it. Because when you spend a lot of time you've completed a beautiful carving and if you're you're it's time to have the finish, you can't go guessing as to the right thing to do you have to have somebody that's a specialty at that doing that type of work for you," said Phil.

To learn more about Phil's wood sculpting career, who inspired him, and what he plans for the future, tune in to this episode.