THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 15, 1997 TAG: 9701150035
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LAWRENCE MADDRY
LENGTH: 88 lines
IN A HUSHED GALLERY of the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, whose walls are lined with masterpieces of the shipcarver's art, Bob Harvey uses chisels and knives to recreate the Norwegian Lady figurehead for visitors who are often unaware of its significance.
Harvey's workshop is the centerpiece of the gallery where figureheads from vessels of centuries ago have been restored and stare from the walls with wide eyes and rouged cheeks - haunting faces monitoring the carver's progress.
Each Saturday the Virginia Beach carver can be found chiseling away on a slab of basswood as part of the museum's ``The Art of the Shipcarver'' exhibition - a stunning display of European and American figureheads and nautical carvings depicting royalty, military heroes, historical characters mermaids and allegorical figures.
Not far from where Harvey carves on the wood, which will ultimately resemble the figurehead from the Norwegian bark Dictator, a white polar bear figurehead can be seen.
That figurehead adorned the bow of the the steam auxiliary barkentine Bear, used by Adm. Richard Byrd in 1933-34 on his voyage to the Antarctic. That expedition took Byrd further south than any human had gone on our planet.
On another wall hangs a figurehead of Jenny Lind, the Swedish singer who was as celebrated as Madonna in her time (1820-1887). The operatic soprano was so popular that more than 35 vessels were named in her honor.
More than 30 figureheads and carvings from the museum's collection are on display in the exhibit, which can be seen through July 13. One of the largest is a 1,000-pound white figurehead of Mars, the god of war, which was carved for the bow of the warship HMS Formidable in 1822-25. That massive work of the helmeted war god is 6 feet tall.
By contrast, Harvey's figurehead of the Norwegian Lady will be half-sized - only 3 feet long - and will weigh about 75 pounds.
He's the former director of the Atlantic Wildfowl Heritage Museum in Virginia Beach, a retired Army officer who describes himself as a historic interpreter. An accomplished woodworker, Harvey has demonstrated the use of old tools for the making of barrels and buckets at places like Mount Vernon and Monticello.
He finds relating to Mariners' Museum visitors easy and interesting.
``People seem delighted to learn that there is a local connection to the figurehead,'' he said. ``And quite a few already know the figurehead's story. It's very nice to have someone come over to where I'm working and tell me about seeing the original figurehead when it was in the sand on the Virginia Beach oceanfront.''
The Norwegian Lady figurehead became a fixture on the city's oceanfront in March 1891 when she washed ashore. The bark Dictator - which ran aground near 16th Street - carried 17 persons. Eight of those drowned including the captain's wife and son, despite the lifesaving efforts of men at the Sea Tack Lifesaving Station. The figurehead remained at 16th Street, as a memorial, until 1953 - when it was damaged during a hurricane.
William Foss, author of ``The Norwegian Lady and the Wreck of the Dictator,'' notes that tourists like to chip off pieces of the figurehead for souvenirs, so the city placed it in a garage for safe-keeping. It was wrapped in burlap and forgotten.
In the 1960s, when Virginia Beach officials looked for it, they discovered it had disappeared, probably stolen.
When a story about Dictator and the missing figurehead appeared in a Norwegian magazine, thousands of Norwegians, from schoolkids to navy personnel, sent contributions for a statue to replace the figurehead.
So much money was raised that two bronze statues were commissioned. One is at Moss, Norway. The other - erected in 1962 - is at 25th Street in Virginia Beach.
Some of the more interesting objects in the Mariners' Museum exhibit - arranged by curator Tony Lewis - are not figureheads.
``The oldest item in the exhibit is a Dutch pilot rudder post head, probably from the 1700s,'' Lewis said.
I didn't know what a rudder post head was. It was a likeness of a head which adorned the end of a ship's rudder post.
``It came through the captain's cabin and indicated by its movement whether the ship was steering a steady and correct course,'' he said.
In a storm the head would move back and forth across the captain's cabin like a shrunken voodoo head as the rudder was turned.
Lewis showed me a very lifelike rudder post head from the mid-1800s decorated with the face of Stephen Decatur, the American hero who once commanded the frigate United States.
I tried to imagine a ship's captain asleep in his bunk with Decatur's wooden face moving back and forth at each movement of the rudder.
Eerie. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
LAWRENCE JACKSON/The Virginian-Pilot
Bob Harvey poses with one of his pieces called ``The Republic'' at
the Mariners' Museum's ``Art of the Shipcarver'' exhibit.
KEYWORDS: ARTISTS SCULPTORS WOODCARVING