Lowell Pettit, of Park Forest, carves a Halloween decoration for his daughter on a recent Saturday at the Midwest Carvers Museum campus. Pettit is a member of the South Suburban Chiselers and Illiana Woodturners, which has been based out of the museum in South Holland since 1987. (Mary Compton / Daily Southtown)

Frankfort resident Tony Burton recently retired from the Navy and was keeping an eye out for what to do next. That search brought him to South Holland, where he could be found recently turning what not too long ago was a limb from a maple tree into a wooden serving bowl.

“This is so therapeutic and keeps me out of my comfort zone,” Burton said. “I’ve never done anything like this before. The whole process has been amazing from start to finish.”

Burton is one of the newest members of the South Suburban Chiselers and Illiana Woodturners, a group that’s been based out of the Midwest Carvers Museum in South Holland since the 1980s. He was creating the wooden bowl on a lathe under the watchful eye of instructor Mike Larson, of Highland, Indiana, who discovered the group while attending Heritage Festival in South Holland a few years back.

Tony Burton, of Frankfort, creates a serving bowl from a chunk of maple wood spinning on a lathe on a recent Saturday at the Midwest Carvers Museum campus in South Holland. "My next goal is to make larger salad bowls for the house," he said. (Mary Compton / Daily Southtown)

The group has been giving presentations and recruiting members at South Holland’s traditional Labor Day festival for eight years, and they’ll be back again this holiday weekend to show off their skills as well as the pieces they’ve created.

When the organization moved to South Holland in 1987, there were hundreds of members. Now they have about 60 members, said Tom Waicekauskas, of Midlothian, president of the South Suburban Chiselers and Illiana Woodturners, noting it’s the only carving/wood-turning club in the area.

“I hope this does not go away,” he said. “In Europe this art is very popular.”

The Midwest Carvers Museum is home to the two groups of artists. There are the chiselers, who carve wood, and the wood-turners, who create pieces using machinery. Each has its own building on the museum grounds, along with the shared museum displaying an array of members’ creations.

For both groups, the craft hasn’t changed much since the museum opened. The initial experience for Waicekauskas, who joined in 1985, was similar to that of Burton, one of the club’s newest members.

“I had no idea what I was doing when I first began,” Waicekauskas said. “I took a blank piece of wood to a finished piece of wood, painted detailed and carved, I was thrilled how it turned out.”

Chris Geisler, of Thornton, carves lifelike miniature animals on a recent Saturday at the Midwest Carvers Museum in South Holland. (Mary Compton / Daily Southtown)

Chris Geisler, of Thornton, loves carving animals. Her lifelike wooden sculptures include a fighting rooster and a miniature turtle, as well as renderings of fantasy creatures such as dragons.

“I love carving dragons because they don’t exist and you can make them look however you want,” she said, noting it was another flying creature that got her started with carving.

“I always have loved birds, so when I learned the South Suburban Chiselers were offering a bird carving class here, I got involved and have been having a lot of fun since,” she said. “The people here are so helpful; they don’t hide what they have learned. You’re always learning something.”

As Geisler shaped a small animal sculpture on a recent Saturday on the museum campus, Lowell Pettit, of Park Forest, was creating a Halloween decoration for his daughter. Carvings of a crane and a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting were posted on a shelf above his head.

Tom Waicekauskas, of Midlothian, president of the South Suburban Chiselers and Illiana Woodturners, watches Sherry Trojanowski, of Steger, make a wooden pen in the workshop of the Midwest Carvers Museum in South Holland. (Mary Compton / Daily Southtown)

“My mother-in-law got me started in this” laughed Pettit, 84. “I began taking classes here in 2006, and when the instructor passed away I took his job here teaching others how to carve.”

Pettit teaches basic carving at the museum and his carvings, such as a carousel, feature minute details, turning them from objects to art.

“In a carving, detail is critical,” he said. “You can carve something simplistic but if you don’t have the detail, it just doesn’t last.”

He said he hasn’t seen a lot of youth picking up a chisel and creating carved art, but they’ve got plenty of time to discover it, he said, just like he did.

“Kids don’t seem to be interested in getting involved in things like this,” Pettit said. “I’ve been sketching and was involved in the arts when I was a kid but didn’t start carving until I was 65. You’re never too old to start carving.”

Richard Buttenhoff, of Shorewood, shows off his carved sculpture he named Hans. This caricature is one of his favorite pieces and has a movable arm that lifts a mug of beer. “I carve my pieces to be animated” he said. (Mary Compton / Daily Southtown)

Richard Buttenhoff didn’t need the extra time. He was 6 years old when his grandfather taught him how to carve.

“My grandfather was a shoemaker,” he said. “He had knives because he had to carve various pieces, and that’s when I learned how to carve.

“It wasn’t until I joined this club that I really learned the techniques of carving. Not only are their good carvers here, but there are also great artists here as well.”

Buttenhoff enjoyed the craft so much that he traveled to Austria to take carving classes there.

“I learned to do a more serious kind of carving and not so gimmicky,” he said. “There is a difference between carving and doing mass production.”

Still, “I’ve always carved gimmicky things,” Buttenhoff said.

His shelf at the museum contains a collection of unique caricatures who each receive names, such as Rufus and Sadie. One of his favorite pieces is Hans, whose movable arm lifts a beer.

Gimmicky or not, he said it’s hard to put a value on the art produced by the carvers and wood turners at the museum.

“Every time you do something, the time you put into it,” he said, “it is priceless.”

Across the way at the wood-turning workshop, one can hear the grinding and buzzing of wood being turned into figurines, vases, and even pens.

A wooden sculpture carved by Richard Buttenhoff, of Shorewood. (Mary Compton / Daily Southtown)

Members of the group pay $75 annual dues, which includes use of the machines as well as wood and lessons.

“We give you a lot of value for the amount of money it would cost to take one woodworking class alone,” added Waicekauskas.

The organization also takes donations of carving wood, such as basswood, butternut, maple and walnut.

Members of the South Suburban Chiselers and Illiana Woodturners will be giving demonstrations and showing some of the pieces they created from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday at Heritage Fest at Paarlberg Park, 17234 Paxton Ave., South Holland.

And the carvers and wood turners welcome visitors on Saturday mornings at the Midwest Carvers Museum, 16236 Vincennes Ave., South Holland.

“This is a place to get away and have camaraderie with fellow wood-turners or woodworkers,” said Waicekauskas. “It’s a way to learn from each other and pass this on to future generations.”

Mary Compton is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.