Richard Cawvey hooked a dream job when he began carving fish from wood about 20 years ago.
By CONNIE JONES
Published November 10, 2003
[Times photos: Kathleen Flynn]
A hogfish is surrounded by sawdust as Richard Cawvey passes by carrying a mermaid at Craftsmen's Corner in Safety Harbor.
"To carve one fish, you have to carve 10,000 to get even close," Richard Cawvey said. Cawvey says he carves for "the love of it."
Richard Cawvey paints a fish that he carved out of wood with red pigment at Dunedin's Oktoberfest on Oct. 11.
SAFETY HARBOR - Richard Cawvey has lived a life worthy of Huckleberry Finn, working his preteen years on a riverboat on the mighty Mississippi and knocking around the oil fields of California, Texas and Oklahoma as a derrick hand.
Now, his dreams are filled with the carved fish that he creates from pieces of cypress or red cedar.
Life-sized grouper and snook and sailfish populate his workshop here, multiplying by four and five a day. His creations have adorned Leverock's and Red Lobster and, after more than two decades of practicing his craft, he is a regular at local art festivals.
"It took me a lot of years to perfect my carvings," said Cawvey, 43, as he leaned on his elbow on the tailgate of his 1992 white Chevy pickup. "I've been doing it for 20 years, and I'm still not happy with them."
His passion was born of a friendship with water.
He was born in Illinois and grew up there and the St. Louis area. Just before his 11th birthday, he ran away from home and got a job on the Blue Ridge, an old, freight-pushing riverboat.
"I wasn't into school, and I was in a farming area, and riverboat life was exciting," Cawvey said. His parents worked on another boat and didn't know where he was for two weeks. When they found out, they agreed to let him stay on as long as he didn't hurt himself.
"I could tell you stories that would put Huck Finn to shame," Cawvey said. "I just didn't ride a raft down the Mississippi; I pushed freight."
He said his first trip out was during the flood of 1971. A two-story house floating downriver crashed into the Blue Ridge. Cawvey said he raced down the deck to get away from the falling debris.
One Christmas Eve, he said, they were pushing grain down the Mississippi from Illinois. Trying to avoid river ice, the Blue Ridge ran into a railroad bridge near St. Louis. A train was crossing at the time.
"We hit the bridge so hard, a half-dozen boxcars leaned over the bridge," Cawvey said. "We shook the train off the track and lost a whole string of barges."
During the 1970s, during monthlong furloughs, he visited Clearwater. He made a little money decorating docks with old nautical ropes and fish net. He began carving fish, he said, when he started decorating seafood restaurants in the late 1970s.
He returned to Clearwater to stay in 1990.
Cawvey carves saltwater fish, such as grouper, snook, hogfish, swordfish and mahimahi. A 24-inch snook sells for $75. An 11-foot mahimahi goes for $200.
"I just look at a board and know what it's going to be," Cawvey said.
Many of his ideas, he said, come from dreams. "It would wake me up at night. I would see in detail what I was to carve.
"I start with a chain saw and carve a rough draft of the fish. Then, I pick it up and go to the power tools."
When the carving is done, he sands and paints the fish. A clear coat of polyurethane waterproofs his work.
Cawvey said he can carve, sand and paint four to five fish a day. Most of them are sold at such events as the Honeymoon Island Seafood Fest and Boat Show later this month and in shops around the state, such as the Fishing Unlimited Outfitters and Fly Shop in Boca Grande.
Capt. David Harman of Safety Harbor, a flats fisherman, bought three of Cawvey's fish: one for his house, one for his office and one for a relative.
"They're very detailed and realistic," Harman said. "I wish I had a picture of a real fish and was holding a carved one. The detail is there."
Cawvey and his wife, Gail, have an 8-year-old daughter.
He envisions college for Rebecca. "I want her to have more opportunities than I had," said Cawvey, who has a fifth-grade education.
He plans to carve fish the rest of his life. "I can't imagine myself doing anything else," Cawvey said, "and in the years to come, I hope I get even better."
- For information, call Cawvey at the Safety Harbor Carving Company, (727) 723-9452.
