"It's the size of the whales that is startling to most
people," notes Ahrens, a slender man in his mid 60's,
with a wispy white beard, hair to match, and wire rim glasses
that accentuate his ocean blue eyes. Each sculpture measures
between three and five feet long, and they hang from every
surface in the combination gallery and living space, along
with nautical paintings.
Ahrens steps back proudly; he loves to watch the reaction
of people entering his gallery. Naturally inquisitive, he asks
visitors how they found him, where they are from and is amazed
when he finds that his fans have made pilgrimage from South
Carolina or Virginia just to see his whales. "Just last
week I had a couple arrive in a camper van," says Ahrens. "They
wedged three pieces into the cabin." He's
been building his reputation as a whale carver for 35 years,
yet doesn't rely solely on the occasional visitor. His work
appears in galleries and museums all across the country, as
well as private commissions.
It may seem incongruous that growing up on a dairy farm in
South Londonderry would inspire a person to become a world
class whale sculptor, yet it took more than an occasional trip
to the ocean for Ahrens to develop his passion for whales.
However, he was always consumed by art. "I always loved
to draw and paint," he
says. And even though his parents moved him from New Jersey
to Vermont in 1947, "there were always a bevy of local
art teachers to fuel my desire."
One of these was the legendary Bernadine Custer-Sharpe, as
well as his late mentor, Clark Vorheese of Weston, who had
a gallery with his wife during the 70's. Working summer stock
at the Weston Playhouse, Ahrens hung around the studio during
his free time and watched Vorheese carve,
skillfully lifting a whale form out of a solid block of wood.
By the end of the summer, Ahrens had learned to carve, more
or less, and bought a wall plaque of a whale for $30 as a reminder.
He tucked it away into storage when he moved, only to find
it years later as the inspiration for his own work.
Ahrens graduated from Green Mountain High School
in 1962, and enrolled in the Vesper George School of Art in
Boston. Just six months shy of graduation, however, was shipped
off to fight the war in Vietnam. Returning in 1970, he enrolled
in the California Art Institute hoping for a change from the
familiar east coast art scene, yet it was ashock. "The
school was way too avante garde and abstract for me, and I
didn't fit in." says Ahrens, who prefers the more realistic
and formal style of Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth." I
lasted only six weeks." Instead, he settled into a small
fishing village on the coast, married and found work as a general
carpenter, then learned cabinetry, painting and making art
only occasionally on the side.
Coastal life allowed him to
watch whales from the shoreline and one
day, when work was slow, he rediscovered the Vorheese model
and started
to imitate the style. "It was my first carving and not
anything to be
proud of," he explains, modestly."But I instantly
recognized that
carving wood was a medium that felt more natural to me than
painting."
At the same time, the whales began to draw him in, and he began
to seek
ways to take a closer look at these giant mammals. Determined
to carve
large scale, with a focus on completely accurate renditions,
he sought
scientists who would be willing to critique his work as a way
to
improve his style.
Sculpting whales became more than a hobby,
and eventually he took the plunge into the ocean at Baja, California
to study the migration of gray whales during their annual retreat
for mating and calving. In San Ignaccia Lagoon, a 40-foot whale
allowed Ahrens to stroke its throat, an encounter that he is
convinced, transformed his life course. "I never intended
to make whales my career," he says earnestly. "But
they found me." During a pilgrimage to Maui, he swam with
45-ton Humpback whales and observed their behavior, their power
and their grace, which he translates into his work.
In 1984,
still living in California, the Coyote Point Museum in San
Mateo, commissioned Ahrens to sculpt an 18-foot whale - the
world's largest wooden cetacean - for permanent display. It
took a year to complete, and through it he realized that carving
these giant sea mammals was his life's work. He moved back
to Vermont in the mid-80's, and set up a carving studio on
a dirt road in Peru. With a small sign on the road, customers
were few and far between, so he devised another way to get
the word out.
That first year, he made over fifty whale carvings,
and sent them to a friend in Bellingham, Washington, then drove
across county in a truck. "I loaded up the sculptures
and stopped in every sea side town all theway to San Diego,
visiting galleries and museum shops," he
recalls witha grin. "I sold all fifty in three weeks!" Then
he did the same thing on the east coast from the tip of Maine
to Key West, although the response was not as positive south
of Virginia. "Nobody
was interested in whales," says Ahrens. "All they
wanted were ducks."
Ahrens continued alternating months of sculpting
with time on the road, and managed to generate enough work
with galleries, museums and private commissions to turn it
into a business. But in 1998, a fire destroyed his home and
wood working shop, leaving him nothing but a few pieces that
were hanging in a gallery as part of a retrospective of his
work. Many friends and admirers helped, and in the process
he realized that losing everything meant that he was free to
redesign his life and his career in positive ways. In 1999,
he signed a lease on the current gallery in Weston, the former
home of Nancy and Bob Rice, where each day he lets his dogs
loose from their outdoor pen and walks across the driveway
to his studio.
The sliding barn door opens onto a 10' by 20'
windowless shop, slightly insulated for winter and filled with
mountains of sawdust, and planks of wood waiting for Ahrens
to render into whales. "I don't
carve, I sculpt" he explains, showing a high carbide power
tool that grinds away at the wood to form the undulating whale
shape and the creases that indicate tail, gills and jaw. Once
the shape is complete, he applies seven layers of pigment to
create an antique faux finish that results in a patina similar
to that of an early American artifact. For the wall plaques,
he works ten at a time, yet each one is slightly different
in the final paint application, signed and dated.
"Being an artist, you don't have a choice
in life," says
Ahrens, who admits that his view of towering white pine trees
and a gurgling brook outside his studio are no match for the
coast of California when it comes to whale watching. Yet this
is home, and he has managed to combine a passion for the world
of sea creatures with a natural skill to sculpt and paint.
In his work, Ahrens displays an intimacy that goes beyond,
capturing the striped contours or crusty barnacle on a whale
jaw, or silky smooth skin and sharp whiskers of the sea otter
in a way that reflects his great affection for his subjects.
He could have chosen cows, he muses, but in the end, he guesses,
he didn't have that much to do with the decision. "Like
I said, the whales really chose me."
Ellen Ogden is a frequent contributor to
Stratton Magazine. She livesin Manchester Village.
Wooden
Plaques Series . ORDERS
