The Private Collection: Leroy Setziol

In his retirement, my Grandfather was a woodcarver. He rendered birds, beautifully in wood. Being my hero, I naturally wanted to know how to do the same. His willingness to teach me was one of the great joys of my life.

I love woodcarving. I love the way freshly-cut grain opens the smell of the wood. I love the sound a sharp chisel makes, zipping through Bass wood. These are gifts from my Grandfather.

And I love birds, though didn’t and don’t especially like wildlife art as a genre. He was exceptional and I liked his and select others. But contemporary art began tugging at me, shortly after it entered my conscious.

I liked to have my Grandfather’s approval. I asked him about everything and had he known I was asking permission, he’d have granted it. But the way I asked it—he had no way of knowing what I was after. I think we were sitting in adjacent swivel chairs and I was looking at Smithsonian or Art in America and I saw Constantine Brancusi.

This was a sculptor I could relate to! Coincidentally, the sculpture I was looking at was Bird in Space (which looked nothing like a bird). When I showed it to him, he shrugged. He wasn’t telling me I couldn’t like it. It just didn’t float his boat. But it struck fear in me.

When he died, I was given a number of his art-treasures, including a piece by Leroy Setziol. It is a wood carving. A panel. It is contemporary. He owned it at the time I suspected him of turning his nose up at Brancusi. And it is brilliant.

Somehow, it was after his death—through this piece from Leroy Setziol, my Grandfather gave me permission to take the skills he had taught me as a woodcarver and apply them anyway I see fit. In fact, the permission was right there, hanging on his wall.

*the piece pictured is not mine, just representative of Setziol's work