The Wood-Gormley beam carving page

In 1995, as Wood-Gormley Elementary in Santa Fe, NM was approaching its 70th year, plans were being made for a full-scale remodeling. The remodeling ended up as a 4+ million dollar project, and it was essentially run by a committee of volunteers, consisting of the principal, parents and teachers, a representative of the school district, and the architect.

The surfaces of unsculpted beams were chipped to give them a 'worked' look, and to rid them of dirt and grime

Architects Santa Fe was chosen for the design, where the project there was headed by Christopher Purvis. When Christopher left the firm, Marybeth Kingston took over his responsibilities. As the design progressed, there were regular reports to the PTC meetings. At one point, it was proposed that the PTC could contribute to the building by financing the purchase of large wood beams, to be installed over doors, in the hallways, and in the ceiling of the lobby. Here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the use of large wood beams in this way, in conjunction with stucco and plaster, is part of the architectural vernacular.

All this wood would make the school a much prettier building, but of course could not be purchased with school district funds. The funds were to be raised by the sale of bricks which would bear an inscription of the contributor's choice, a method that was successfully used to finance projects at, for example, the Santa Fe Children's Museum. All the necessary votes were taken and commitments made, and the beams became part of the design. Soon thereafter, the PTAAC (parent-teacher art advisory committee) suggested that the school community - children, parents, teachers - could add to the project by carving these beams. After all, beam carving had a long local tradition, and it would be a unique opportunity for the community members to make a lasting contribution to our children's school.

Since we had no permanent working space, each beam had to be moved several times. The swivel-wheeled beam carriers saved many backs and muscles (in this case, mine and David's). Here is how to make them.

We got the OK for the carving concept, and engaged professional carvers David Parsons and Toby Bringas to hold workshops to teach us the tricks of the trade. We also purchased chisels, (some of which actually were generously donated by Woodworker's Supply in Albuquerque). The attendance at the workshops was huge, with about 30 families showing up. Ann spent time in each classroom, collecting ideas from the children about what they would like to see on the beams. In the new building, there would be 15 classrooms, and having a different beam over each room sounded like a great plan. In addition, there were dozens of beams in archways in the hallways.

Here, however, we ran into unexpected opposition. It seemed that when the carving project was first proposed, some on the architecture committee were just thinking of lines and notches, and not of the full-fledged bas-reliefs that were now being sketched. All this art stuff was obviously too much for the more straight-laced members of the architectural committee, and since they declared themselves in charge of the beam carving committee, rather than their equals, we essentially were declared to have no say in the matter. The net result was that in the end we were only allowed to put designs on 7 beams. Had it been up to us, we would have had carvings for each classroom, and maybe more.

Janet working on the bears

There were actually 3 kinds of beams:
(1) the beams over the classroom doors. There were 21 of them, 10x10", and typically 8' long, and were reasonably managable.
(2) Beams in the hallways - 10x10", but typically 10 or 12' long; there were 74 of these.
(3) Beams for the lobby ceiling - 12x12", 22' long; there were 13 of these monsters.

The remodeling was done in two major phases, with the Western half of the school being done first, and the Eastern half second. Initially, we were only going to do the classroom beams. For the first phase, there were 4 sculpted beams (birds, snake, fish, lizards), and the remaining 6 were just chipped (like in the picture near the top of this page).

As the classroom beams for the the first phase of the renovation (the Western half of the building) were nearing completion, the contracter got further and further behind schedule, and we were starting to consider chipping the hall beams, which were larger and more numerous. Charles Brunn and I decided that we could indeed do the job, but we needed to hurry, since the first of the hall beams were already going up, unchipped. By the time we got permission, about 5 pairs of beams were already installed, in the NW and W corridors. For many evenings we worked like mad to stay ahead of the framing crew, chipping beams before installation, and doing the backbraking chipping in place. (You can tell which ones were done in place by the fact that the chisel strokes terminate at the wall surface. Also, after having done one or two undersides, I modified a power planer to do the undersides by machine. Charles, Janet, Ann, David S., Anita and I finally got the beams for the Western half done.

The snake, who ended up over the door to what is currently the kindergarten room

All along, we had considered the lobby beams an impossible job, and had never sought to chip them. They were the 22' 12x12, and at more than 850 pounds apiece, could not be lifted by us. However, I had my modified power planer now, and I had been looking at this pile of monster beams, sitting there in the middle of the unfinished lobby, getting dirtier by the day. One night I went there alone - Charles was out of town -, and did one surface with the planer. This did not take too long. I experimented a bit with a lever and blocks to see if I could budge these beams; this proved not impossible. Finally I decided it was now or never, and started doing them. The contracter was going to start installing them the next day - for real this time. I chipped all those beams in two very long nights of hard work - planing, lifting, stacking and unstacking, rotating these long behemoths singlehandedly. Now I know how the pyramids were built.

Daniel and his daughter Elizabeth, and Janet, working on the roadrunner beam

Here is the core team: Janet Russek, photographer. David Scheinbaum, photographer, professor at the College of Santa Fe Janet and David are married, and are dealers in vintage photographs. Ann Brunson, art teacher. Ann had just moved to Santa Fe from Texas. Hubert van Hecke, yours truly, physicist (look me up in Phys Rev!), a green card holder from Holland. David Parsons and Toby Bringas of course played a special role. Initially hired for a small fee to give two workshops on carving and bas-relief, they stuck around till the very end. They put the finishing touches on most sculpted beams. Right now (December 1997), David is finishing up 73 24x26' bas-relief panels for the State Library on Cerillos Road. Go look. Charles Brunn, contractor. As a contractor, there were periods when he had not much work, and at those times could spend enormous amounts of time on the project. Especially near the end of phase 1, he negotiated daily with the framers, keeping beams and schedules sorted out, and then chipped a pile of beams. Daniel Morper, painter/lawyer joined for the second phase, and took the lead on the roadrunner beam.

Each of us developed his/her own style of chipping. For example, the long sinuous strokes are mine, and the dramatic star patterns are Charles'. Janet and Ann had shorter strokes.

The lizards, over the door to xxx's class

We are ever grateful for our unending source of beam carvers (listed alphabetically); to Justa (Wood Gormley alumni, 1996) and Ricci Armijo and their grandfather, Eluterio Barela, who was an inspiration to everyone involved (deceased, 1997), to Ivan and Joss Barnett, to Phillip and Randal Briggs, Trey Brunson, Ann's son, and his grandfather, Bill Patty, to Carol Cardin and children, to Charlene Cerny and Elizabeth and Catherine Chipman-Cerny and Joe Chipman, to Mark, Dylan and Hannah Currie, to Iora Dop, to Billie, Ryan and Driscoll, to Jo Ellis, to Patrick, Mariana, Kelsy and Kaitlin Avalos-Feehan , to Sonya, Ron and Desiree Jacobs, to Denise Johnson, to Paul, Lisa and Daniel Kaufman, to Stephen, Christie and Ben Lauer, to Jared Lindsay, to Sina and Martha Littlebird, to Tim, Teresa and Kimberly Lopez, to Sam Mauldin, to Carol Medrano, to Daniel and Elizabeth Morper, to Barry, Raoul and Liesette-Mimi Paisner, to Michael Rea, to Sandy and Hallie Richards, to Kent and Pam Scarborough, to David and Zachary Scheinbaum, to Paul, Karyn and Trevor Schmitt, to Linda and Paul Tachau, to Debbie, Kelly and Travis Urig, to Anita and Rosie West, to Victor, Eric and Lee Wulc, to Larry and Talia Wang, to Laura Wilson (a Santa Fe Living Treasure) and many others whose names were never left for us to record. (But if you know of missing names, please let me know and I'll add them)

The fish, over the door to ms. Esquibel's class (3rd grade)