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The Artists of Ancient Cypress, LLC
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 843-389-9648
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NEW ARTIST:
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L.P. Rogers
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L.P. Rogers has been making furniture and wood carvings seriously since 1970. His love for wood and woodwork began much earlier. His father and grandfather were in the logging, sawmill, and building supply businesses. His great great uncle helped him with his first project - a lamp that turned on and off by rotating a boat's wheel. That same great uncle left him some woodworking tools and equipment and several pieces of exotic woods. L.P. developed a rather widespread clientele for his work. Most work went through a process of sketches, client input, pricing and completion.
Recently L.P. has become captivated by the uniqueness and beauty of the ancient cypress. "Just to place my hands on good usable wood that was standing here in South Carolina 45,000 years ago is a thrill of immensity. That was 33,000 years before man appeared in North America by most accounts and probably 20,000 years before modern man."
Some recent creations from the ancient wood:
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Philip A. Greene
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Born: 1967, Milford, CT
Education: Self-taught
Philip Greene is a canoe and paddle builder who works from a 2,800-square-foot studio in rural Round 0, South Carolina. Philip has always loved water and admired the pioneer lifestyle. As a child growing up a Connecticut and in New Yorks Adirondack Mountains, he would shape boats from wood and bark and float them in nearby brooks.
Philip joined the Navy in 1983, and in 1984, he and his wife, Paula, moved to South Carolina where he was stationed. In 1988, he established a studio and built his first wooden canoe. Over the years, Philip has improved his canoes by creating and experimenting with new designs. Although he has no formal training in boat building, he considers trial and error his education. He also credits his driving quest for perfection to his fathers high expectations. Today, Philip and various apprentices at Wood Song Canoes produce two to four commissioned canoes, or up to 125 paddles, annually.
AWARDS:
- "Best of Show" at the Georgetown Wooden Boat Exhibit, Georgetown, SC in 1993, 1995, 1997
- "Best of Show" at WoodenBoat magazine's WoodenBoat Show in Southwest Harbor, ME in 1994 and 1995
- "Best of Show" at Wooden Boat Show, Charleston, SC in 1998
- "Best of Show" at Lowcountry Juried Craft Show, Bluffton, SC in 2001 and 2002
- Exhibited in OBJECTS for USE: Handmade by Design at the American Craft Museum in Manhattan in 2001/2002
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Artist's Statement
Each man who has encountered a navigable body of water has hidden within his soul a natural and
primitive desire to build a boat from wood. Whether that desire has been passed down through societal traditions or surges from deeper and more ancient roots, I am not sure. I do know that by becoming a wooden boat builder, I am satisfying that desire and fulfilling every man's dream.
Function aside, there is an aura about a well crafted canoe that exudes sensuality and demands attention. A lingering tough on the gentle wooden curves while reveling in its flowing lines provides enough emotion for a lifetime of memories. My life's task is to sculpt the shapes that create those memories.
-Philip Greene
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Elaine Tanner
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Elaine Tanner is a retired nurse practitioner who enjoys spending hours in her craft room working on her latest project. Taught to sew by her mother at an early age, she became an accomplished seamstress and needlework artist, enjoying embroidery, needlepoint, and cross-stitch. She became an avid quilter about twenty-five years ago and proudly displays her blue ribbon winning quilts in her home. After covering her home’s beds and walls with her quilts and sewing quilts for new babies in the family. She began looking for a new way to express her creativity. When a friend introduced her to pine straw baskets several years ago, she became intrigued with creating beautiful objects made from the ready supply of long needle pine straw in her backyard. With the pine straw and a few slices of black walnuts to use for the centers, she began experimenting with different styles of baskets. With the discovery of the ancient cypress, she knew that by incorporating small pieces of the wood into the centers of her baskets, that she would be creating works of art using natural material that spanned thousands and thousands of years from the ancient wood to the newly fallen pine straw. Local artists were commissioned to do the artwork on the wood that became the center of the baskets. Elaine has created baskets in several different shapes and sizes, all given the careful attention she pays to everything she makes.
Baskets by Elaine Tanner are available through Ancient Cypress,LLC or Elaine can be contacted at www.johntannercalls.com
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John Tanner
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John Tanner has been a nature conservationist most of his adult life and wild turkey enthusiast since the first wild turkeys were restocked near his South Carolina home in 1975. Governor Carroll Campbell appointed him to serve on the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources Wild Life and Fresh Water Fisheries Advisory
Committee in 1989. He served twelve years in that capacity, which afforded him the opportunity to travel extensively over South Carolina meeting with state biologists and individual land owners discussing wild turkey habitat management and conservation practices. When the first Ancient Cypress was discovered in 2003, he became active in helping the founders of Ancient Cypress, LLC with their public relations needs. A wild turkey fanatic, he naturally was drawn to try his hand at making a call out of the ancient wood. Several calls later and after a lot of trial and error self-taught lessons, his first acceptable call evolved. It was then that he realized he had gotten involved with something intriguing, and working with the wood kindled his interest to the point that he could not put it down. Box of Time was chosen as the name of a limited edition series box call that represents his first work. Each surface on the call depicts approximately seventy five years of growth climate data from a period 45,000 years before present, making it truly a Box of Time.
Calls created by John Tanner are available through Ancient Cypress,LLC or John can be
contacted at www.johntannercalls.com
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Tim Kelly
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I was born and raised in
Greensboro, NC. My interest in wood working started, I guess when I
started
going camping with my Dad at the early age of 7 or 8 years old. He used
to
point out certain trees and their characteristics to me . He taught me
to
look for signs of the presence of animals and which trees they favored.
I migrated to camping with my friends and started seeing fallen tree
limbs
and looking at them as to what kind of walking stick they would make.
This
interest sort of progressed from there and now I am making custom
Hiking
Sticks and Irish Shillelaghs (canes). I recently became entranced with
the
possibility fo having the opportunity to make something out of a medium
from
Ancient Cypress that has been proven to be 50,000 years old or older.
Just
to work with something that was around during such a long forgotten era
is
quite a thrill and honor. Every piece of Ancient Cypress expresses it's
own
unique characteristics which makes it so beautiful!
Furniture created by Tim Kelly is available through Ancient Cypress,LLC.
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D. D. Hull
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Dr. D.D. Hull is well known for his hand made, custom waterfowl calls. “Doc Calls” are both functional and collectable waterfowl calls.
Dr. Hull has retired from Dentistry in 1990, after 38 years of practice. During those years as a Dentist, Doc was active flying his own airplane over much of this country and Canada as well.
Following his years as a dentist he took on a career as a professional pilot for several years. He served as a chief flight instructor and Charter pilot for a company operating in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Doc Hull, as he likes to be known, has been making calls for over 25 years and he specializes in wood calls made of fine native and exotic woods.
“When I was contacted by the folks at Ancient Cypress I made it my mission to learn as much about this wood as I can. So far I understand that continuing studies show this wood to be possibly more than 52,000 years old.”
“Working with the Ancient Cypress wood is both a challenge and great satisfaction for me. Just to hold in my hands and to manipulate this wood gives me a lot of pleasure. To realize the antiquity of this wood, which predates the birth of Jesus by 50,000 years is awe inspiring.”
These calls are made with authentic Ancient Cypress wood with solid Sterling Silver bands and are fully functional calls.
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Ron Stephan
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Ron’s interest in woodworking began in the late 1990’s when he started crafting puzzles for his granddaughter
Jordan and then his grandson Daniel. He started modestly enough with few skills and few tools (scroll saw and sander),
but a lot of desire. As his skills and tool crib grew, so did his desire to try new things. He started crafting wooden
toys, patio chairs, holiday decorations, etc. After his retirement from Wellman, Inc. in 2000, Ron found himself with
more time to devote to his hobby. If he saw something he liked he would try to make it, sometimes with plans and other
times just winging it. Encouraged by friends, Ron has presented his crafts at a number of arts and crafts festivals
over the years from James Island to Surfside Beach to McBee, SC. In 2006, one of his S.C. state flag plaques was presented
to each member of the S. C. state legislature as a gift from a local chamber. Then Ron was introduced to the mountain
dulcimer. His beginning and continuing interest in the mountain dulcimer is that of a player. He acquired his first
dulcimer as a Christmas gift from his wife Betty in September 2005. After learning to play a little his interest in
crafting one was piqued by an article he came across on the Internet. Since that time Ron has built 8 mountain dulcimers
and 7 of those still hang on his walls. He can’t seem to part with them. The last two dulcimers were partially crafted
from Ancient Cypress. They are the first in a limited edition series called the Palmetto Series (from the designs of the
sound holes). Ron has committed to crafting no more than 5 dulcimers in this series.
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