HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Ralph began carving in 1946 when he was twelve years of age, at McFarland Elementary School in Detroit, Michigan. The woodshop class that all the boys were required to take, included drafting, wood recognition, use of carving tools and power equipment, and the project construction from beginning to completion (sculpture, shoe boxes, bird houses, etc., as well as drawing and constructing a self-created automobile to be presented for city competition at the Fisher Body Building (a GM affiliate in those days). His first two sculptures he carved can be seen in Gallery I. He recalls that each boy was to complete an original construction of a 3 ft. sailboat by the time they finished 8th grade ( elementary schools were K-8 at that time).
The
next time Ralph touched a carving tool was some 40 years later when he took
a carving class with master carver Georg Keilhofer
in Frankenmuth, Michigan for 10 weeks. His only other carving class was
a one week class in Elbigenalp 63 Tyrol/
Most of the over 200 carvings completed are deep relief, high relief, and sculpture since the 1980’s. He has been driven to be creative in nearly all his carvings. In order to keep those creative juices alive he gives his carvings to friends or relatives on special occasions. He never wanted to get caught up in selling his carvings. He has been known to say “if I sold my carvings, I would lose the love of creating”.
Ralph now lives in Palm Desert, CA with his wife Marguerite and two Schnauzer
dogs (one a black giant and the other a black mini.).
He has designed his own carving studio which is adaptable also for his wife
who is an avid pastel painter.
