November 20, 2003
by Alexa Smith

CADIZ, OH - Gordon Jones began whittling by sitting down at his kitchen table with a paring knife in one hand and bit of basswood in the other.

Soon the outlines of animals were emerging from the wood. Not the creatures Jones might spot from his kitchen window, but a parade of more exotic creatures - regal, spotted giraffes; mountain rams with delicately spiraled horns; camels, some with one hump, some with three; and dolphins like those he saw hydroplaning next to the aircraft carrier on which he served when he was in the Navy.

The carvings are primitive, yet whimsical.

"I see the animals as I'm working, I guess," Jones says, describing his method in a slow, soft drawl. "It isn't like an order to do something. Whatever comes into my head, that's what I'll do."

Whittling is an endeavor well-matched to the pace of life in this once-booming coal town in the hills of eastern Ohio, near Wheeling, WV.

Unemployment is the norm since the bottom fell out of the steel industry in the 1980s, rolling up the sidewalks in little towns like Cadiz, where talk is more about the past than the future.

Jones, 68, is not a miner. He worked for the Harrison County Department of Highways, although he's retired now. He hews figures out of basswood because it relaxes him, keeps his hands busy and engages his imagination.

It doesn't loosen his tongue much. Like many others who live in these heavily strip mined hills, he is a man of few words.

"This is what I do to relax, yes," he says, leaning back in his chair with a giraffe in his hand. "Some days, I sit down and start, and it just happens. Other days, it takes longer."

Nately Ronsheim, of the Cadiz Presbyterian Church, is more voluble.

Jones is a celebrated "find" of Harrison Hills Cottage Industries, a non-profit agency created 10 years ago with a grant from the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s Self-Development of People (SDOP) program, a ministry that partners with poor, oppressed and disadvantaged people.

Harrison Hills markets goods produced by local craftspeople, supplementing families' flagging incomes and improving the morale of artists like Jones. It is the brainchild of Ronsheim, who was appointed by the county planning commission to help find ways to generate income for families hard hit by the loss of jobs when the deep mines closed down.

His giraffes, in particular, sell like wildfire. They're a have-to buy for folks browsing through The Cottage, as the agency is known locally. When they hit the shelves, Ronsheim says, "The fit was on We go through these times where everybody wants one thing."

More recently, Jones has come up with a line of chunky dinosaurs. The idea came to him when he was watching a neighbor's little boy play with a rubber Tyrannosaurus rex: Why not try it in wood?

When he first examined Jones' carvings, she knew he'd qualify for training available through a program created with another SDOP grant. It just so happened that carvers were apprenticing in Oglebay Park in nearby Wheeling, in program geared to keeping the mountain arts alive.

Soon Jones put down his paring knife and took up a proper set of tools, and turned his imagination loose.

He had worked before with wood, building clock cases and music boxes, always to a set pattern. His creatures, however, are one-of-a-kind.

He says learning from authentic woodcarvers gave his confidence a boost. Any time he felt stuck, one of the master carvers would lend a hand or offer a suggestion. It was the kindest form of schooling: "The fellows down there were really good with your questions," he says with a smile.

But for the moment, his animal "assembly line" is at a standstill.

Jones and his wife, Vivian, have an inquisitive 2-year-old son, Marcellus. Dad has put his sharp tools away temporarily. The shelves at The Cottage are still stocked with his creatures, but he hasn't done much carving lately because Marcellus get into things. The kitchen table isn't a safe spot for carving anymore, and the coffee table in the television room is out of the question.

Jones' favorite piece is a two-foot-long horse, so far unsold. He plans to show Ronsheim the wooden flower baskets he's noodling over. His pastor, a Pentecostal preacher, has every animals Jones ever carved. Jones says that he gives the parson the best of each batch.

"I want to (start carving regularly) again," he says Jones, with a nod towards Marcellus, who's playing nearby, his Pittsburgh Steelers jacket cast aside on the floor. "I've had it in my mind that when he's napping, I'll pick up a piece and start on it."

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