Four owls by Johnny Ganes are being auctioned by George A. Spiva Center for the Arts. For details, go to spivaarts.org

Johnny Ganes set out to be a professional woodcarver more than 25 years ago, after a Native American friend gave him his first knife. Ganes, a lifelong Joplin resident, created many things, but most popular was his interpretation in wood of the Harley Davidson eagle.

His goal was to sell his wares at the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally in South Dakota. He never made it, and a short time after he began, he set his dream aside and returned to his work as cabinetmaker and carpenter.

“I had big expectations,” he says, “But people wouldn’t buy them. They were too expensive. I couldn’t afford them, myself, so I couldn’t blame them.”

He continued in the odd hours, however, to shape small things, which is why I visited him at his Roosevelt Avenue home. I was struck by the simplicity and shy sweetness of some handcarved owls he had donated to the George A. Spiva Center for Arts, and I was curious about his story.

As we chatted about life, art and city politics, it occurred to me there must be some deeper meaning in the medium this man chose to use for his owls — discarded Christmas trees culled from Joplin alleys.

He did it for years, he says, prowling the backstreets after the yuletide, loading up the trees, stripping them of their spent greenery and looking for just that right grouping of branches.

He showed me a photograph of the denuded trees, and I couldn’t imagine how he could see creatures in those stark branches. I asked him why he chose Christmas trees. “Most of them are spruce, and it’s easy to work with and doesn’t crack,” he said, a small smile playing across his lips.

Perhaps.

But there is more to it. There is poetry about the idea of taking the most obvious symbol of a happy holiday and making it live on. The owls became a symbol in their own right, a recycling of spirit.

Ganes offered the owls to Spiva for any purpose the group deemed worthy, but he would like any proceeds to go toward the SpivaKids Fun Fund. The program sets up classes with local artists to work with children.

Fees range from $30 to $35 for the classes, which goes toward a stipend for the artist-instructor and materials. If kids express an interest in the classes, but don’t have money, Spiva folks seek help from “art angels.”

Ganes was among about 90 volunteers to take part in Rejuvenate Joplin, a great idea where artists teamed up with volunteers to clean up certain areas of the city. The artists gleaned the refuse for stuff that they will make into a sculpture and then display as part of a program called “Trash to Treasure.”

Ganes suffers from a heart condition and ongoing medical problems stemming from an automobile crash 10 years ago. He speaks rapidly, his thoughts occasionally meandering before returning to the original point, and sometimes he just stops, grimacing.

“I can’t find the words,” he said. “I have so many ideas I want to get across, but I sometimes can’t find the words.”

He once wanted, for instance, to tell his wife how much he loved her, what her caring for him meant. He told her he had the words — beautiful and kind — but struggled to put them together in sentences.

Ganes took part in Rejuvenate Joplin for admittedly selfish reasons. “I was told it would make me feel good to help. It did. It is very seldom that a person gets to feel good,” he told me, again flashing the small smile.

The volunteers were served dinner at Memorial Hall after Rejuvenate Joplin. Ganes watched as children played basketball as part of a separate city-run program. Their joy filled him. He was compelled to act when he read about SpivaKids.

It is not much, he knows, four hoot owls carved from and soaked in the ghosts of Christmas past. It is not the roaring fun of Sturgis, but the giving, as he notes, makes him feel good. “What a person needs in life is very little,” he said, “A friend to talk to, a roof over your head. We don’t need that much.”

Slowed dramatically by his health, Ganes says he sleeps a lot now. He hasn’t carved for some time, and finds the will weak for new projects.

He perks up when asked whether that’s what he ultimately would like to do, to be, a professional carver, an artist.

“That would be great,” he said and then paused. He waved a hand around his modest home. “Wants and dreams don’t change; circumstances do.”


See all four owls and bid online

Spiva Center for the Arts, funded through memberships, contributions, and grants, is open to the public. Admission to the Main Gallery is by voluntary contribution.

George A. Spiva Center for the Arts
222 W. 3rd Street
Joplin, Mo 64801
Tel: 417-623-0183
Fax: 417-623-3805
www.spivaarts.org

Edgar Simpson is editor of The Joplin Globe. Address correspondence to him, c/o The Joplin Globe, P.O. Box 7, Joplin, MO 64802.