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A signature skill learned in jail
William Richard was the patriarch of three generations of Acadian/French American loggers and wood carvers. He was born in 1900 in New Brunswick, Canada, and moved to northwestern Maine to seek work in the woods. As described by folklorist Peggy Yocom, William Richard’s delicate fan towers are “mind-tricking sculptures” that conjure birds in flight or dancers’ swirling skirts. This carving consists of two fans perched on a vertical shaft that includes two round “balls-in-cages.”
After working several years in logging camps outside Phillips, Maine, Richard married and helped raise five children. He provided for his family by working as a logger and whittling small pieces for sale on the side. In the early 1930s, he learned to make the fan towers through an unusual apprenticeship:
“It was 1933, during the Depression, and to make ends meet, Richard, like many area woodsmen and farmers, made and sold beer and wine to add to the $1 a cord they got for chopping wood. For his efforts, he was arrested by Sheriff Leavitt and slapped into the Franklin County Jail. There he met fellow French woodsman Raymond Bolduc who taught Richard how to make the fan towers, a traditional art form known especially in Finland, Sweden, and Russia. The fans were once made throughout the boundary area of the United States and Canada by woodsmen in winter logging camps…”
—Peggy Yocom, folklorist
Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Richard participated in the 1976 and 1983 Folklife Festivals. He enjoyed hearing visitors speculate about his methods: were the balls pre-shaped and inserted into the cages? Were the fans made of Popsicle sticks glued together? In the end, he always set them straight: the fans were carved and bent from single pieces of wood—no glue involved. Although fan towers eventually spread as far west as Oregon, the double-fan tower remained the specialty of Richard and his mentor, Raymond Bolduc. Today, his grandson, Rodney “Butch” Richard continues to carve them, as had Butch’s father, Rodney Richard Sr.
