Legacy Crests
HomeArtist Profile
Links
Site Map
Inquiries
EmbryMcKee.com
(for small items)
FAQ's
_____
_____
Artist Profile
My name is Embry McKee. I was born and reared in Tennessee, and served four years in the U.S. Navy as a cryptologist. Most of that service was done in Japan, where I acquired my first set of carving tools. I continued living in Japan, where I taught and studied, until my return to the U.S. in 1997. Since that time, I have taught Japanese and worked wood here at home in the States.  Making crests and other complex high-relief designs is appealing because of the range of skills involved: it entails very careful wood choice and meticulous grain matching; it requires large panel glue-ups and small device frame-ups, giant miter joints and minute border joints, great sweeping curves and impossibly delicate letters; and it demands accurate representation of detail in carved elements. It brings the disciplines of carving, woodworking, and lettering all into each project, and it calls on every tool in the shop. In the choice and layout of woods, in the translation and texture of carved elements, in the style and execution of letters, a great deal of interpretive artistry can be exercised; therein lies the fun. |