The Kemper Birds

    The waiting list for a single wooden carving created by Claude Kemper’s hand is four years long.  His works have been featured in the Stonewall Jackson Jubilee and the West Virginia State Folk Festival.  For twenty-seven years, he has carved and hand-painted renditions of the bird in the hollow.  Only ten complete collections exist. One complete collection of “Birds of My Hollow” is on public display at Glenville State College.

    The unique collection of 45 hand-carved and painted birds features a one-of-a-kind centerpiece, “Feathers of Yellow,” and is permanently housed on the second floor of the Robert F. Kidd Library in specially designed cases of wild cherry wood. 

    Claude Kemper grew up on a 150 acre farm on Tanner Creek Road.  Living in the hollow as his family did, Claude and his siblings were encouraged to make friends with nature’s creatures.  They developed their own descriptive name for each bird species, noting the color and shape of each bird.  When Claude retired in 1975, he and his wife Ethel returned to the West Virginia hollow Claude knew as a boy.  He began carving and soon discovered he experienced great pleasure in carving and painting birds he knew and loved as a child.

    Claude carves all of his birds from basswood, then mounts them on driftwood he collects from the shore of the lakes in West Virginia.  “When I carve and paint a bird,” says Kemper, “my objective is quite naturally to show the important identification markings, but above all I try to capture the beauty of the bird – the beauty of shape and beauty of color as I see it.”

    Kemper has now been carving birds for 27 years.    As the popularity of his work grew, Ethel helped him manage the three to four year backlog of orders for his beautiful carvings.  When Ethel passed away in 1998, Claude’s son Ronald and daughter-in-law Lynn began helping him keep track of the long request list.

    Among his awards are the “Best of Show” at the Lake Sumter Community College Art Exhibit and First Place in Mixed Media in the Eustis Florida Art League.  He was a featured artist for the 1984 Vandalia Gathering at the Cultural Center in Charleston. His exhibit at the West Virginia Folk Festival in the historic Little Kanawha Valley Bank building has always been a popular site.

    Gilmer County visitors and locals alike are invited to visit the Birds of My Hollow collection in the Robert F. Kidd Library during regular hours.

     For more information about the Claude Kemper Birds of My Hollow display and booklet at Glenville State College, contact the Robert F. Kidd Library at 462-7361 ext. 109.