Dean Bivens Carver & Textile Links

Today we had Calendar Girls at Betty Bivens house.  When I first arrived we ended up drawn out to the garage where her husband Dean was working on painting one of he carved fish. We started talking to him & he was showing us parts, & works in progress. This is a quilt’s husband who really understands UFOs!

One of the things Dean has been able to use his talents for is helping out at the Wild Bird Refuge. There is an eagle who lost a big chunk of his beak due to getting tangled with a fish hook & line, & a local dentist has cast a prosthetic beak for the bird. About every 6 months Dean has to remove it, & do a little shaving underneath, the reattach it, for it to fit correctly. He said the eagle is all eagle, & very predatory when he’s in the atrium, but when they catch him & lay him down on his back to work on his beak, he just lays there. Dean actually uses a power tool  to carve on his beak, then glues the prosthesis back on, & the bird doesn’t seem to mind.

This is a Kestrel he’s working on. Amazing stuff.

I’m not sure I ever showed this quilt on here before, but it is one that the group did from a photo I took at the Alaska State Fair, & I drew the pattern for it, the sliced it apart, & 6 of the Calendar Girls made it. It won a Blue Ribbon at the Fair.

Rena brought a new book with her, & I want to share it with you. It is one of those books that is great for inspiration. It is FULL of beautiful textiles, & I was excited to skim through it & see several people I know, here in Alaska such as Linda Beach, KC Lowe, & Ree Nancarrow. here are a couple of people I’ve taken classes from, Ann Johnston, & Patti Madaris Culea (who is also a blogger). & Then there are some people I know from blogging, Sue Bleiweiss & Terry Stegmiller. It’s beautiful book. There are links to all of these people embedded on their names, check them out!