Western Carolina University WCU University of North Carolina Asheville UNCA

Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

Western Carolina University (20) View all
University of North Carolina Asheville (6) View all
  • Interviews (314)
  • Manuscripts (documents) (3)
  • Personal Narratives (7)
  • Photographs (4)
  • Sound Recordings (308)
  • Transcripts (216)
  • Aerial Photographs (0)
  • Aerial Views (0)
  • Albums (books) (0)
  • Articles (0)
  • Artifacts (object Genre) (0)
  • Biography (general Genre) (0)
  • Cards (information Artifacts) (0)
  • Clippings (information Artifacts) (0)
  • Crafts (art Genres) (0)
  • Depictions (visual Works) (0)
  • Design Drawings (0)
  • Drawings (visual Works) (0)
  • Envelopes (0)
  • Facsimiles (reproductions) (0)
  • Fiction (general Genre) (0)
  • Financial Records (0)
  • Fliers (printed Matter) (0)
  • Glass Plate Negatives (0)
  • Guidebooks (0)
  • Internegatives (0)
  • Land Surveys (0)
  • Letters (correspondence) (0)
  • Maps (documents) (0)
  • Memorandums (0)
  • Minutes (administrative Records) (0)
  • Negatives (photographs) (0)
  • Newsletters (0)
  • Newspapers (0)
  • Occupation Currency (0)
  • Paintings (visual Works) (0)
  • Pen And Ink Drawings (0)
  • Periodicals (0)
  • Poetry (0)
  • Portraits (0)
  • Postcards (0)
  • Programs (documents) (0)
  • Publications (documents) (0)
  • Questionnaires (0)
  • Scrapbooks (0)
  • Sheet Music (0)
  • Slides (photographs) (0)
  • Specimens (0)
  • Speeches (documents) (0)
  • Text Messages (0)
  • Tintypes (photographs) (0)
  • Video Recordings (physical Artifacts) (0)
  • Vitreographs (0)
  • WCU Mountain Heritage Center Oral Histories (25)
  • WCU Oral History Collection - Mountain People, Mountain Lives (71)
  • Western North Carolina Tomorrow Black Oral History Project (69)
  • A.L. Ensley Collection (0)
  • Appalachian Industrial School Records (0)
  • Appalachian National Park Association Records (0)
  • Axley-Meroney Collection (0)
  • Bayard Wootten Photograph Collection (0)
  • Bethel Rural Community Organization Collection (0)
  • Blumer Collection (0)
  • C.W. Slagle Collection (0)
  • Canton Area Historical Museum (0)
  • Carlos C. Campbell Collection (0)
  • Cataloochee History Project (0)
  • Cherokee Studies Collection (0)
  • Daisy Dame Photograph Album (0)
  • Daniel Boone VI Collection (0)
  • Doris Ulmann Photograph Collection (0)
  • Elizabeth H. Lasley Collection (0)
  • Elizabeth Woolworth Szold Fleharty Collection (0)
  • Frank Fry Collection (0)
  • George Masa Collection (0)
  • Gideon Laney Collection (0)
  • Hazel Scarborough Collection (0)
  • Hiram C. Wilburn Papers (0)
  • Historic Photographs Collection (0)
  • Horace Kephart Collection (0)
  • Humbard Collection (0)
  • Hunter and Weaver Families Collection (0)
  • I. D. Blumenthal Collection (0)
  • Isadora Williams Collection (0)
  • Jesse Bryson Stalcup Collection (0)
  • Jim Thompson Collection (0)
  • John B. Battle Collection (0)
  • John C. Campbell Folk School Records (0)
  • John Parris Collection (0)
  • Judaculla Rock project (0)
  • Kelly Bennett Collection (0)
  • Love Family Papers (0)
  • Major Wiley Parris Civil War Letters (0)
  • Map Collection (0)
  • McFee-Misemer Civil War Letters (0)
  • Mountain Heritage Center Collection (0)
  • Norburn - Robertson - Thomson Families Collection (0)
  • Pauline Hood Collection (0)
  • Pre-Guild Collection (0)
  • Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual Collection (0)
  • R.A. Romanes Collection (0)
  • Rosser H. Taylor Collection (0)
  • Samuel Robert Owens Collection (0)
  • Sara Madison Collection (0)
  • Sherrill Studio Photo Collection (0)
  • Smoky Mountains Hiking Club Collection (0)
  • Stories of Mountain Folk - Radio Programs (0)
  • The Reporter, Western Carolina University (0)
  • Venoy and Elizabeth Reed Collection (0)
  • WCU Gender and Sexuality Oral History Project (0)
  • WCU Students Newspapers Collection (0)
  • William Williams Stringfield Collection (0)
  • Zebulon Weaver Collection (0)
Oral Histories of Western North Carolina Back to search results
WCU - Oral Histories of Western North Carolina

Interview with Ben Beaver

2 of 2 items 2 of 2 items
  • record image
Copyright Download
Item 1 - Interview with Ben Beaver

Interview with Ben Beaver

HL_MSS01-04_Nickols_BenBeaver_2004-11-24_audio

Interview with Ben Beaver

HL_MSS01-04_Nickols_BenBeaver_2004-11-24_transcript
Item
?

Item’s are ‘child’ level descriptions to ‘parent’ objects, (e.g. one page of a whole book).

  • Hi, I’m Matt Nickols. I’m here interviewing Ben Beaver. Ben, do you know you’re being taped? ’43, and he got killed in an accident. don’t, I can’t remember a whole lot about his carving. I can remember some, but… And ‘cause I was only six years old. And now I’m the only one left that’s carving.Well, it’s a big and great hobby for me. I mean, I enjoy it. I’ve always done it. I started and from then on, I taught myself. And, so, it’s just Well, as far as I know, I mean, it’s been around as long as I have, really. before I was school age and just when he’d take in his carving, you know, and that was… I looked forward to that all the time. And that’s the only, that’s crafts, only part on my father’s side. And of course, my mother’s, they quilted for years and years. So, there’s an abundance of mountain crafts. there’s an abundance. I’ve thought about it, but I’ve never got startedWell, at times it does, and at times it don’t. And that’s just the way, that’s the way it goes. Yeah, you sell through them. Yeah, that’s the best Yeah. My mother couldn’t even carve. No, she [inaudible] she had a piece that she hadn’t started on. She was visiting us one day, and she asked me if I had me to keep carving for sure ‘cause I was the last one in the family. Bigger family of carver he, of course, he knew I would, but he kept encouraging me to, and so that’s how it’s been. oxens. And, well, he carved anything he’d take notion to. He did, if he thought of something and he wanted to try it, he’d draw him a pattern of it, and carve it. That’s just the way he was. And, he carved strictly horses. He loved the horse, and that’s all he would carve. up to what you’d call large. that small, doesn’t I’m looking at some pieces that are centimeters tall with lots of detail. Wow, there’s a rabbit with very distinct detail. That’s really interesting. Yeah, that’s why they call them miniature, there, and… So, what’s the size of, like, some of the larger pieces you’ve ever done? Well… Wow, that’s so small. That’s so detailed. I guess the largest piece I’ve eight long. And that’s probably the largest, that’s the largest piece I ever carved. ‘Cause it’s hard to find big enough carved. And from there, it’s with a knife. I finish it with a knife. I don’t use power tools. Every once in a while, I’ll use [inaudible] but not very often. Well, it’s time consuming ‘cause it’ll take you , it’ll take you if you work continuous, it’ll take you at least three to four hours to finish. preference is bass wood. And, and then, if we can’t get it, we will carve buckeye, but bass wood is our preference. And it’s getting hard to find it. And especially the dry keel, ‘cause it has to be dried or it’ll crack all to pieces on you. And, so, we just buy wherever we can purchase it. What’s the longest it’s taken you to complete one of your projects?Well, well, I’ve worked on a bear for that’s the longest. Of course, now, that’s not continuous. I just work a while on that and then I’ll do something else and go back to it. That’s the way I carve. I don’t sit continuous and do it. Well, there, if they see a piece and, you know, and like it, and they’re interested in it, there’s schools, classes, like, that take a day to… t people that’s never carved any, and that they can take, and they can get started, and then it’s just how much they want to improve on their own is, and go from there, you know, it’s however Well, me, I’ve only been to Cullowhee and for the folk school. And that’s about my father’s area I’ve Yeah, I’d say my horses would be my favorite. , get the… local, I mean, where there’s a lot of tourism, you know. A lot of people coming in. Seems to sell better. The local areas, we’ve never done real good at ds. That all, it depends on how much you carve, you know. But, I’d… probably a couple hundred pieces maybe in a year’s time. Wow, now, do you sell, do you sell most of what you make or…Course, like I said, they’re out there right school. You can sell, I can sell everything I carve over there to them, really, so… that’s, right now, that’s our main goal, that we do try to go to a few shows. They’re not dependable. The next time, you don’t sell anything, so that’s a hit and miss situation. Well, no, not really. I’ve given some away to friends and relatives for special occasions, and, I mean, it, it’s not hard for me to [inaudible] I probably want to get rid of it, so I can, I mean… some that wasn’t dried proper or something, and it’ll crack on you, a spider web, hairline cr in it, and then you just have to throw it out, ‘cause you can’t, you can’t sell it, and that’s the them we ever been to. And that seemed to be a good time, and I’d say that’s about probably the carving’s Now, I don’t think so, but carvers still carve just like they did forty, fifty years ago, so… they’re, they do around here. Now, I know in some places, other carvers, they use , now, but right here, it’s still the same old, same way. I mean, it’s still How do you see new generations getting into your craft? What, what’s one of the main l, I don’t see them getting into it, really, because they don’t, they’re not interested in it. It’s too much, it’s too time consuming for them. They can’t, they can’t sit down that long and work. But, now, there’s an exception. There’s a few ested in it, you know that… them, and help them a little bit, and get them on their feet, and that’ll be the best way.making a piece and see what it’s going to look like., and that’s what keeps me into it. I like to try new things too. pattern up on it and saw it out. I don’t let the wood, you know, guide me on what I’m gonna So, do you, do you visualize, kind of, like, what you’re going to make ahead of time? Yes, you do. I do. I sort of visualize what I’m going to make and, and also what I’m I visualize how it looks. If I’m carving a horse, I visualize how it looks standing out Well, I just, you know, decide I want to carve a bear so I’ll just cut me out a bear pattern. We’ve got a lot of patterns out there advertise, or do you do any other kind of advertisement other than the school or…? No, no, we don’t do anything. cards, but that’s it. We don’t do any other advertisement. Your wife told me, I think, over the phone once you’d made something for the Queen of That’s this right there. That’s my dad’s horseShe, she’d get… it was, but I don’t see Yeah. They were his specialty. That’s all he carved was horses. And “You don’t want to take the letter?” And he said, “I can’t read it, so I don’t need it.” And so, she said, “Well, I’m going to keep it.” So, she framed it and hung it up in the school, and then they took it down later years, and I don’t, packed it back. And my uncle it, and one of the ladies he was talking to said, “I know where it’s at.” And he said, “I’d like to have a copy of it.” And she said, “Well, we’ll make you a copy of it.” So, they did. And, so, he, he brought it to Wow! That’s really interesting. That’s a really interesting story. Are there any o that, that have particularly interesting stories or meanings to you that you’ve made? that they had left that they had shipped. And so, that’s my most important part, is that one horse the livestock ‘cause we had a horse and a cow and Grandpa had two mules He fell on his knife. And that’s how he got… Yeah. Yeah, he didn’t live but just a few minutes, they said. Well, you’re welcome. You’re welcome. Okay, as a side note to the letter we talked about, Betty’s gonna read the letter. Okay, it says, “Dear Madam, the Queen commands me, (and she’s speaking of er Majesty’s very heartfelt thanks for the two Mountaineer Craftsmen’s Unit, and the Queen is pleased to by the kindness of the Mountaineer Craftsmen’s Unit in wishing to pr princesses.”
Object
?

Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).

Related items

Part of Collection

Oral Histories of Western North Carolina

These interviews document the communities and culture of Western North Carolina. Topics include the building of the Fontana Dam, the history of WCU, stories from local veterans, integration of the...

View collection Read introduction
panzoom image
converted_cover_pdf