The Stick Maker, Lynn Hoggard - part 2

  [Continuing the account of how Lynn Hoggard of Benton makes walking sticks out of wood he finds while walking.]

                The woods Hoggard uses are dogwood—it’s straighter and prettier, he says, and some of it has a pink tinge when finished—cherry, hickory and sassafras. “And I have one willow stick. Willow is hard to work; it’s brittle so it has to be straight to begin with.”

                One stick was made of a thick grapevine, another from ironwood and one from a bush called devil’s walking stick. “Oaks don’t work,” he continued. “You’d think they would, as hard as they are, but they don’t.”

                Hoggard gathered an assortment of tools and adapted them for his use. “I designed one knife from a wood chisel,” he said. “I needed a knife sturdy enough to take lots of pressure, to take off lots of wood, so I ground the chisel into a one-sided knife to remove the bark easier.”

                He reground two good steel-bladed pocketknives. “They keep a good edge, and the fine points I can use for tedious detail work.”

                Other implements were a wood rasp, which looks like a giant nail file, a rattail file and a smaller file for tiny lines. A roto-tool, or small electric drill, completes his collection.

                Also displayed were several smaller pieces of roots and joints, which will be used as finials for staffs or that will be plugged into sticks for handles. Three such pieces—an intricately carved bird, an Indian head and a roaring lion—are elegant in their craftsmanship.

                Hoggard remembers hearing that the ancient sculptors tried to cut away everything not necessary for their subjects to take shape. Picking up a long yellow staff with knots on it, he explained, “The horse’s head was here, but it was not brought out, so I began to cut away everything that didn’t help the figure emerge, and I think that’s what sculptors do.”

                After an article about Hoggard and his hobby appeared in the local paper several years ago, people would see him out walking and stop. “You’re the walking stick man, aren’t you? Have you found anything today?” they would ask. One man even called on the phone. He also made sticks and had a problem with one of them warping.

                The late Penn Tucker, revered former Benton band director, received a complimentary stick from Hoggard. Since Tucker raised beagles, the woodcarver worked a dog into the stick that he ultimately fitted with a beagle’s head.

                Patty Mask, disabled from an accident, also received one of Hoggard’s sticks. Since she liked dogs, too, he personalized the stick for her.

                I am also a recipient of my brother-in-law’s handiwork. When a ditch was dug across my yard to bury electric lines, a tulip poplar root was unearthed. He fashioned it into a hiking stick, which I take to Eureka Springs every time I go.

                As a former band teacher, Hoggard took untrained students and helped them become ensembles of musical beauty. As a woodcarver and craftsman, he turns natural materials into practical and beautiful works of art.