I grew up with wood shavings and sawdust in my hair and in my pockets, and I loved it!
Hanging out with my dad meant doing guy stuff. Just because he had two daughters did not translate to him playing with Barbie but instead meant that if you were going to be with him that you were going to do what he wanted to do. And what my dad was doing was always working. My dad and my grandfather are wood carvers and I loved being in the wood shop. At the age of 8 I felt I had made a big decision in my life, that I too would carry on the family tradition and be a wood carver. But my dad didn't think that girls should be wood workers. He is definitely from the old school. Flash forward 20 years and I had begun a family and small woodcarving reproduction business, Spit 'n' Whittle. And 20 years later I am still doing it!! I absolutely love what I do for a living. I think I am the most fortunate of people to have a hobby which sustains my income and challenges my abilities daily. I am truly blessed! Spit 'n' Whittle takes sculptures (traditionally carved in wood) and makes a rubber mold of them. After the molds have setup we cut the molds to release the original sculpture. We can then pour a 2 part polymer into the rubber mold and receive a casting of the original sculpture, our woodcarving reproduction. Each casting is then hand painted, sealed to protect the paint work, drilled and installed a dowel rod and drilled cork into the bottom of the piece, and then finally given a name and story on each hang tag. The hang tags are the biggest selling point to the entire product offering and often the most difficult to design. At times it takes longer to come up with a name and story for these caricatures than it takes to carve them! Then after the product is manufactured as described above it is ready for marketing and distribution. But of course there is always issues of copyrights and trademarks, websites and social media to update, brochures and advertisements,new products to design, and inventory control, so much to keep me busy. |
Spit 'n' Whittle, Inc. The original western
bottlestopper company, are the ones with the hangtags with names and stories which really sell them! If you read the stories you will buy the stoppers. It's just a fact. example: LIZA PLENTY The boys around town nicknamed Liza 'AM Radio cuz they say anyone can pick her up and it's even easier at night Spit ‘n’ Whittle is America’s original character BottleStopper company. With very humble beginnings bringing character woodcarvings into an affordable medium of fine porcelain resin we streamlined our products to only BottleStoppers in 1992. By 1996 we had developed and were producing in Mancos Colorado over 200 designs of BottleStoppers.
Over the years there have been many changes except that the company still resides with Kimberly Soldan Hammack, fourth generation woodcarver and entrepreneur currently residing in Bandera Texas. Spit ‘n’ Whittle currently offers 60 BottleStopper designs under the registered trade name of Spit 'n' Whittle and is always coming up with new designs. |