Freeport man celebrates 42 years carving caricatures
FREEPORT — Steve Brown brings out the worst in people.
Whether it’s a big nose, protruding gut or glaring tooth gap, the Freeport resident highlights human flaws as a longtime caricature carver and teacher of the art form. Brown, 69, has carved presidents, such as President Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, to celebrities, such as John Wayne - all highlighting their worst physical characteristics, of course.
“You’re probably familiar with the guys that sit around and do the caricature drawings,” Brown said. “You sit down and they do a caricature of you - draw you up. That’s the style that I carve - the exaggerated features. I was more comfortable with it. I’m a guy that likes to pull pranks and stuff. It makes you laugh and smile when you see ‘em. You try to carve something that makes people laugh.”
Brown is a member of the Emerald Coast Woodcarvers — composed mostly of snowbirds — and other carving groups, such as Caricature Carvers of America, a group in which members must be nominated by a peer. As the organization celebrates its 30th anniversary, he celebrates 42 years of carving people in the ugliest light.
Brown has been around wood his whole life.
He grew up in the days of high school wood shop, and observed his father, Owen, build kitchen cabinets and clocks. He also studied industrial arts in college.
“My brothers and I, we sat around and built stuff,” Brown said. “It might’ve looked like a piece of crap when we built it, but we tried anyway. As we got older, we learned how to lay it out and use the proper tools.”
Brown didn’t get serious about caricature carving, though, until he cut off the middle finger of his left hand with a table saw and a plastic surgeon sewed it back on. It’s the only finger without arthritis, he said with a chuckle.
“While I was recuperating, I couldn’t be still,” Brown said. “I picked up a knife and started whittling. That’s how I began. After I healed up, I got rid of all my big machinery and started using a knife and a couple of chisels and that’s what I’ve been doing.”
He learned from the best. Brown stumbled upon some books on the subject in a craft store while living in Kentucky. They happened to be written by Harold Enlow, the founder of Caricature Carvers of America and unofficial “Godfather” of caricature carving, who Brown later studied under one week a year in Arkansas.
He moved to Freeport with his wife, Martha, in 2014, after vacationing in Destin for years.
Brown has two tools for carving, palm chisels, which are shorter chisels that fit in his hands, and a fixed blade knife. He has all sorts of chisels, he said.
“You might call me a toolaholic,” Brown said. “Everywhere I go, I buy a tool whether I need it or not. I’ve got ‘em strung out everywhere in my shop.”
Carvers use linden wood, aka bass wood — a term that originated when fisherman started using it for lures in the early 1900s.
“It’s a type of wood that floats really easy — of course all wood floats, but this one here would still float with the hooks on it,” Brown said. “Up north, it grows real fast.”
The time it takes to carve a piece depends on the size and level of detail. Most he can whip up in two days.
“I can have a person winking, so I only have to carve one eye,” Brown said. “And I can stick both their hands in their pocket, so I don’t have to carve hands.”
Since starting, Brown has authored “Carving Pen Figures” and Carving Figural Kaleidoscopes.” He has also won overall best of Caricature Division at The Woodcarvers Congress, the Henry Taylor award, second Best of Show in the Caricature Carvers of America competition and was inducted into the Caricature Carvers of America in 2014.
“I really enjoy the competition part,” Brown said. “I get a wild hair every now and then and send a piece. I put a piece in a year ago in January in Charlotte and won that one.”