Loren Pinski

For woodcarver and Missoula, Montana native, Loren Pinski, what began as simple carvings of birds has morphed into the creation of  bears, wolves, bison, and mountain goats, plus nativity scenes and Christmas decorations. In his words: “My introduction to bird carving was in 1984 when I spent three months in Holland, Michigan. While wandering through an art gallery I saw a carving of a miniature hen mallard. I have never seen anything like that made out of wood and at that point, I knew that I wanted to be a carver. Upon returning home to Missoula, I bought a book on decoy carving, grabbed an old Doug Fir 2×4, found my dull carpenters chisel and went to town. I still have that smooth-bodied Scaup, and I still remember that stud grade lumber is not the best carving wood.”

Since then, Loren has sold carvings to collectors and companies throughout the world. He says, “I currently carve a Bald Eagle for the Mulrooney Award, which is presented annually by the North American Wholesale Lumber Association and I carve the service awards for the Pacific Logging Congress. My work has been purchased by several corporations as service awards and customer gifts and acclaimed in company journals of several Fortune 500 companies. My carvings have been sold through art galleries in Boise, Denver, East Glacier Park, Bigfork and Coeur d’Alene, purchased by collectors in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Indonesia, New Zealand, the U.K. and Japan, and an antiqued-style American Advocet was ordered by a large corporation and was presented to one of Brazil’s provincial Governors.”  He has also been a longtime artist with The Clarke Gallery…