Take a bough Winnipegger carves out a niche for himself with his intricate creations hewn from wood By: David Sanderson Posted: 4:07 PM CDT Friday, Jul. 12, 2024

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This article was published 12/07/2024 (800 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg woodcarver is keeping the spirit alive in one of the city’s most-cherished urban forests.

Since 2009, Murray Watson had been creating striking works of art by carving intricate facial images into the bark of dead trees in the Boie-des-Esprits forest, often at the behest of Manitobans wanting to preserve the memory of a lost loved one.

Following Watson’s own death in October 2023, many who frequent the hidden gem bordering the Seine River wondered if there was anybody interested in — or even capable of — following in his formidable footsteps.

For a while, friends and family had been telling Lucas Kost, a craftsperson whose specialty is whimsical wood-spirit faces, that Boie-des-Esprits would be an ideal canvas for his talents.

While it’s true there are scores of dead-standing trees in Boie-des-Esprits, enough for multiple artisans to display their skills, he respected Murray’s legacy there and never considered giving it a go, Kost says, seated in the dining room of his and his wife Danika’s Southdale bi-level.

“But then after Murray sadly passed away last fall, there were a bunch of individuals still wanting to get memorials done, who began asking if I’d be able to help them out,” continues the 28-year-old, whose Instagram account Lucas Kost Carvings has a tick over 102,000 followers.

“I’ve done one so far, and it looks like there’s a good chance I’ll be trying my hand at a few more, down the line.”

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Kost, a self-described “country boy at heart,” was 10 years old and living with his artistically inclined parents on an acreage just outside Lac du Bonnet when he picked up a whittling knife for the first time.

He showed his mother what he’d made out of a felled tree branch. As impressed as she was by his efforts, she nonetheless enlisted a family friend to offer her youngest son a few tips, to ensure he continued to return home with all of his digits intact.

In addition to carving lessons, Kost’s mentor also taught him how to scour the surrounding area, hunting for wood that would be suitable for his endeavours.

“It was a specific material, cottonwood bark, that we were after, and he showed me how when a dead tree falls over, the bark washes off the trunk during flood season, and gets suspended in the riverbanks,” Kost explains, casually dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.

“It was a fun scavenger-hunt kind of process and to this day, my wife and I walk along the banks of the Red and Assiniboine in the springtime, looking for pieces I can use.”

Kost was 11 when his family moved to a house on Kingston Row, in St. Vital. He continued to carve but by the time Grade 10 rolled around, at which point he was a student at Glenlawn Collegiate, he had largely parked his hobby in favour of other interests.

By his own admission, Kost wasn’t overly focused on his studies during his first three years of university. He eventually buckled down, though, and in 2019, he successfully took the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), with an eye toward becoming a doctor.

He wasn’t dissuaded when his first set of applications to various medical schools were denied; he was still “raring to go,” he says.

Then along came COVID-19, which seemingly caused everyone, himself included, to hit the pause button, during the early stages of the pandemic.

“I still had all my chisels and hammers and because I suddenly had all this free time, I got back into carving in a big way,” he goes on, noting he was still living with his parents, and was granted the opportunity to share a basement workshop with his father, whose pastime is repairing musical instruments.

In the beginning, he carved the same sort of hirsute, wood-spirit faces he had as a kid, except it reached a point where he was turning out so many, he figured he had better try peddling a few, or he was going to run him and his father out of room.

It didn’t take long for Kost to ring up his initial sale through Facebook Marketplace.

Truth be told, his first six months as an entrepreneur were such a runaway success that he eventually parked the idea of pursuing medicine, to devote his unbridled attention to carving.

“Because I’ve received nothing but positive feedback, and have been generally able to sell everything I’ve made within a week or two of posting it, I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to snowball this into a full-time gig that is presently more than sustainable,” he says, mentioning he has fielded orders for his wood spirits from as far as Taiwan, and from almost every corner of North America.

Another of Kost’s interests is classical Roman sculpture. In 2022 he challenged himself to up his game, by introducing realistic-looking human busts to his repertoire. He was already familiar with Italian sculptor and artist Bruno Walpoth, described online as a “real-life Geppetto.”

When Kost learned Walpoth, a graduate of Munich’s Academy of Fine Arts, was offering an intensive, two-week tutorial in Monte Castello di Vibio, a municipality in central Italy with a population of 1,300, his first thought was “how cool would that be?”

The cost to attend was daunting, but after being encouraged by his then-fiancée to sign up — “She basically demanded that I go,” he says, noting they tied the knot last year — he bit the bullet and purchased a plane ticket.

The ensuing experience proved priceless.

“There were only six of us in the class, including a guy from Amsterdam, a guy from Tennessee and a gal from L.A.,” he says, scrolling through his phone to find a shot of himself alongside his teacher.

“There was a bit of a language barrier with Bruno — let’s just say there were a lot of hand gestures — but I managed to carve a figurative bust from the waist up out of Lebanese cedar that’s still in my garage, and will never go up for sale.”

The trip was beneficial in another way. Before leaving for Europe, Kost, a member of Transcona’s Blessed Sacrament Parish, had been approached by his priest about carving a seven-foot-tall, wooden crucifix figure that would rest on a wall, overlooking the altar.

Kost credits his time abroad for giving him the confidence he needed to embrace the assignment, which took him a little over a year to complete and, once done, tipped the scales at about 140 kilograms.

He chuckles, allowing that accurately depicting the Son of God carries some pressure, indeed, but as it turns out, that was only Round 1.

He recently received the green light for a significant undertaking for a New York City-area church, for which he will carve a pair of herald angels that will sit atop the wood casing of a massive pipe organ at Brooklyn’s St. Brigid Church.

“Still no contract signed on my end technically, but I’ve just heard from the organ company that’s contracting this out to me that the church received its grants and that the project will move forward,” he says with a hint of pride.

Kost generally rolls out of bed at 6 a.m., Monday to Friday, to spend the first 90 minutes of his day responding to emails, before retreating to his detached garage to carve to a soundtrack of history podcasts and bluegrass tunes.

That other sound neighbours are hearing? That could be a chainsaw he purchased to assist with ever-popular projects such as a life-size black bear earmarked for cottage country or a six-foot-tall soaring eagle, the latter crafted out of white pine.

(He also does commissioned pet portraits, such as one for a pair of Chow Chows he’ll put the finishing touches on later this month.)

In April, Kost was a registered vendor at the Winnipeg Fine Art Fair at Red River Exhibition Park. He enjoyed interacting with the public immensely — his is ordinarily a solitary pursuit, he says — and his plan is to do more of the same.

That includes a one-week stint at The Forks from July 22 to 28, when he will be doing some live carving at The Forks Trading Company.

Be warned: if you spot a piece of his there you fancy, don’t be overly surprised if the sales transaction becomes a protracted process.

“Considering everything I make is one-of-a-kind, there is a degree of seller’s remorse involved with each and every one,” he admits, running a hand through his hair.

“For sure, there have been a few I’ve held on to for a day or two longer than I should have before shipping them out, only because I was sorry to see them go.”

For more information, go to lucaskost.com

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca