Hundreds of people make this carousel possible. Wendy Kirbey started it all. Now we have artists, carvers, sanders, painters, mechanics, dosants and people working in the gift shop and museum. There are board members, people donating facilities, services and equipment. Thousands of visitors stop at the carving studio each month. Businesses have donated materials and knowledge. Here are some of the people making the dream of a carousel for Albany a reality.
The Artists
Terryl Whitlatch
Terryl Whitlatch was born in Oakland, California and spent her childhood growing up in the East Bay. She studied zoology at Sonoma State University before transferring to Academy of Art College in San Francisco. While still in college, she performed freelance work designing alien creatures for the LucasArts Entertainment Company on the 1995 third-person graphic adventure, The Dig. She has designed animal-themed figurines and ornaments for the World Wildlife Fund and Willitz Designs. In 1994, she joined George Lucas’ special effects company, Industrial Light & Magic to work on Jumanji. She has also worked on The Indian in the Cupboard, Dragonheart, Men in Black and the Star Wars Trilogy Special Editions. She worked as a creature designer for the 1999 feature film, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.
Kurt Christensen
Lead Artist, Kurt Christensen is primarily self taught with a lifelong love of art. His body of work includes having worked as a Character Designer on various Animated TV programs, such as Dragon Tales, Iron Man,, Jumanji the Animated Series and Project GeeKeR. He has experience with illustration, graphic design, animation and claymation.
Carvers
Jack Giles our head carver
Jack is responsible for converting the artist’s concept drawings into the three dimensional works of art. He is always looking for more carvers and would be carvers that he can train to do the detailed work needed. It takes hundreds of hours of careful work to convert the artist’s creations into finished carvings ready for handing off to the sanding and painting crew.
He has created an environment that takes new, unskilled carvers and trains them through small beginner projects using tools supplied by the carousel till they can function as a team member working on a carousel animal. The animal may have many carvers chiseling away on the legs, body, tail, neck and head all at once. Then as the roughing out gets closer to something recognizable the parts are assembled and fewer people are involved. When it nears completion, the fine details are completed by the most skilled of our carvers. All of these steps are monitored by Jack to insure these animals are anatomically correct, in keeping with carousel tradition and of the highest quality.
Painters
Mechanism Crew
Board Members
Building Committee
Dosants
