Dave Teachout

It is Dave's experience that "out of the box" art involves a lot of experimentation. "Some things work, and some things don't. The faster you find out what does not work, the more quickly you will find what does work." He acknowledges that it is great when you do have a teacher to learn from, "but at some point," he says, "if you want to develop you art further, you will have to venture beyond where your teacher could take you. From that point on, your own willingness to experiment and fail will determine where your artistic talent will end up." Dave encourages art minded people of all ages to experiment with new mediums, have fun, and create art. Failing forward is part of the process. Enjoy it.

Dave Teachout has been intrigued with egg shells and art for a very long time. He enjoys all different types of art including photography, painting, black light chalk drawing, hand painting star murals..... and egg carving. "I have always been an "out of the box" thinker," he maintains "and my art tends to illustrate that. I think most artists are out of the box thinkers." For Dave, out of the box is a great place to be…most of the time. "My philosophy is that if you can create something in your imagination, somehow, somewhere, if you are determined and persistent enough, and with God's help, you will be able to figure out how to make it happen."

Dave was born and raised in Central Africa, a child of missionaries. While his parents were busy teaching African pastors, Dave occupied himself with school, soccer and making friends with the African ivory carvers, back in the days when ivory carving was still legal. "The African carvers were incredibly skilled at their trade," he reflects. "They carved ivory, ebony, and redwood into beautiful elephants, rhinos and detailed hunters." Dave says that though some of them could not read or write, they had earned the equivalent of Doctorate degrees in the art of carving. "I could have had no better teachers."

Dave has carved all sizes of eggs from very small Bantum chicken eggs all the way up to large Ostrich eggs. One of the most common questions he is asked is 'Do you ever break any?' Dave's answer?... "Of course. They're eggs!. But overall, relatively few are broken. Most often it is not in the carving process that one is broken. I sometimes get in a hurry and try to carry 2 or 3 in one hand. Those are the times when a few have been shattered." Dave says that the small goose egg ornaments are about as strong as any regular glass Christmas ornament. "If you are comfortable handling glass ornaments," he says, "you will do fine with these unique natural ornaments."

Egg shells are the most incredible canvases Dave feels he has ever worked on. He is amazed at the variety and beauty a simple natural eggshell possesses. The first egg shell project Dave ever started, which was about 16 years ago, became a small jewelry box for his future wife. Dave used an exacto knife to score a line around a chicken eggshell multiple times until it came apart. He then coated it with epoxy resin on the inside to strengthen the shell and glued a hinge and some small legs onto it. He then painted the egg and decorated it as best he could and gave it to his fiancée, Becky. "At the time, I thought it looked pretty nice," he recalls. "Looking back at it now, trust me, it was just plain ugly. But it was a start." Along the way, he bought an air drill similar to a dental drill for carving hardwoods such as ebony, and mahogany. In his experimentation, he discovered that the air drill could cut eggshells without breaking them. This was what he called an "Aha!" moment. After experimenting all different kinds of eggshells he now almost exclusively carves in that medium.

"I came upon one of my favorite designs quite by accident," he says. I had carved a Moravian style star into the front of an Emu egg shell and had mounted a light inside the egg. I thought the entire egg would glow in the same way that the ostrich eggs glow." After placing the egg on his dresser and turning out the lights, he went to bed. As he was resting there in bed, he looked up at the newly carved Emu egg. To his amazement, all he saw was what looked like a miniature 3-D floating star above his dresser. The egg itself did not glow. The only part that was visible was the carved design. "Due to the curve of the egg," he observed, "this 3-D optical illusion was in effect from any angle in front of the egg. You could not see anything supporting or suspending the star. It looked like someone had picked a star out of the sky and placed it in the air above the dresser."

Emu eggs are uniquely beautiful, even among eggs, and are Dave's favorite egg shells to carve. The Emu egg has three layers of completely different colors in each shell. The natural exterior surface of the Emu egg is a blackish-green color, while the second layer is teal blue, and the third layer is white.

Some of Dave's egg ornaments and carvings are available for purchase at Dave's EGGallery.

Dave will be demonstrating egg carving at The Holly Jolly Art & Craft show at South Fork Recreation Center Nov. 14-15. He will also be carving at Roy's folks in Highpoint on Nov 21. His last demo carving this year will be at Bob Timberlake's Christmas Open House on Dec. 6th at his gallery in Lexington.

Contact Dave Teachout at 336-577-5081