Paul Hand

Paul Hand was introduced to carving by his father, Earnest, who has been an artist since the late 1950’s.  Following in Earnest’s path, Paul carved his first piece in 1989.  From cypress wood, he carves creatures that the wood itself makes known to him.  For more than 30 years, he has created fish, lizards, birds and alligators from the found wood.  Although the sculptures are recently carved, the cypress trees from which they are carved were cut down or fell long ago, somewhere around the turn of the twentieth century.  Paul finds the wood in the swamps of Florida, primarily from Dead Lake near Panama City, and uses red, yellow and black cypress for his sculptures.