Toymaker Warren Witte jumped at the chance to sell his wooden toys at the Wenatchee Valley Farmers Market. (World photo/Mike Irwin)
Push-n-pull animals delight both kids and adults
By Mike Irwin
Staff writer
Toymaker Warren Witte sits surrounded by his handcrafted wooden animals — frogs, turtles, a hippo, a kangaroo — and laughs with clear, simple delight.
"Toys bring joy," says the 60-year-old, soft-spoken woodworker, rolling a frog with comically jumpy legs across the patio table. "And animals bring a special joy."
Every weekend, Witte and his push-n-pull friends populate a regular booth at the Wenatchee Valley Farmers Market. His business of handmade wooden toys and figurines, called Artistic Valley Effusions, attracts dozens of kids and parents to its table of paint-your-own playthings, including cars, trucks, trains, tractors, animals and fish.
Over the past decade, the toy designer and artisan has shaped his hobby into a more-than-part-time avocation that’s used different designs, woods, paints and construction techniques to fuse hardwood laminates into all sorts of kid-friendly thingamajigs, including small rocking chairs (with an apple motif) and wooden trains hauling a variety of Wenatchee Valley fruits. The toys are priced from $7 to $25, depending on their intricacy.
In the past year, Witte has primarily focused his creativity on rolling softwood toys that — to get technical — use an offset cam to move legs, open mouths, roll eyes and wave paws on a variety of animal figures. He’s also fine-tuned the toys’ safety features — nontoxic paints, secured wheels, non-swallowable parts, splinter-free finishes.
"For me, animals are a big part of our everyday lives that provide us with a strong connection to nature," says Witte, waving a hand over a tabletop collection of rabbits, horses, sheep and even a shark. "I mean, who hasn’t owned a kitten or puppy sometime in their lives? Who hasn’t felt that these tiny creatures are something special, something to cherish?"
The toymaker says animals — even toy animals — can become a child’s friend, a buddy to take along on explorations of the world. In extreme cases, animals (yes, even toy animals) can help console children and adults who are sad, lonely, grieving or simply stressed out.
"I made a gorilla once," he said with a chuckle, "and then sent it off to college." The wooden ape found a home, Witte says, with college students who used it as a helpful diversion from stressful studies. "Is anything more playful than a monkey?"
A Vietnam veteran and career janitor/maintenance man who still works part time, Witte also helps his wife, Aracelis, with their translation and interpreting business, Accurate Language Systems Inc. Since woodworking and carpentry are often a part of ongoing building maintenance, Witte has had the opportunity, over the years, to learn new skills with a variety of woods and products.
Early in his career, Witte worked on the Boeing team that made wooden mock-ups of the SST, a supersonic jet that never reached production. "But we’d shape nose cones and canopies to exacting standards," he says. "Good practice for later projects."
Raised on a North Dakota farm, Witte was one of 12 children in a family that, he says, "spent a lot of time amid the frog ponds and beaver dams in the landscape around us." Farm life and connection to the land continued when Witte, about age 7, and his family moved to a farm near Ephrata.
"As a kid in the Dakotas, I had a sense that animals in the wild have a sense of freedom that we should cultivate in ourselves," he says. "Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just live naturally and go our merry way?"
In following his own merry way, Witte hopes to use his participation at the farmers market to support the efforts of local growers and craftspeople. "It’s a wonderful thing to see people using their talents to form a local economy based on local production," he says.
"A pipe dream of mine — my Big Idea — is to celebrate our huge agricultural economy by building some kind of ag-based park or center," he says. "It’d be a place where people, not just farmers, could connect with our land and our food, and learn why it’s all so important."
But right now, Witte adds, "it’s the little things in life — and the connections among them — that fascinate me." He picks up a toy frog. "Kids, animals, different kinds of woods, people with skills and talents ... those are what bring joy to life." [rc]
Mike Irwin
irwin@wenatcheeworld.com
Copyright © 2009 World Publishing Co
July 3, 2009
USA: At 60, this toymaker shapes a life of joy
.
WENATCHEE, Washington / The Wenatchee World Online / July 3, 2009
Toymaker Warren Witte jumped at the chance to sell his wooden toys at the Wenatchee Valley Farmers Market. (World photo/Mike Irwin)
Push-n-pull animals delight both kids and adults
By Mike Irwin
Staff writer
Toymaker Warren Witte sits surrounded by his handcrafted wooden animals — frogs, turtles, a hippo, a kangaroo — and laughs with clear, simple delight.
"Toys bring joy," says the 60-year-old, soft-spoken woodworker, rolling a frog with comically jumpy legs across the patio table. "And animals bring a special joy."
Every weekend, Witte and his push-n-pull friends populate a regular booth at the Wenatchee Valley Farmers Market. His business of handmade wooden toys and figurines, called Artistic Valley Effusions, attracts dozens of kids and parents to its table of paint-your-own playthings, including cars, trucks, trains, tractors, animals and fish.
Over the past decade, the toy designer and artisan has shaped his hobby into a more-than-part-time avocation that’s used different designs, woods, paints and construction techniques to fuse hardwood laminates into all sorts of kid-friendly thingamajigs, including small rocking chairs (with an apple motif) and wooden trains hauling a variety of Wenatchee Valley fruits. The toys are priced from $7 to $25, depending on their intricacy.
In the past year, Witte has primarily focused his creativity on rolling softwood toys that — to get technical — use an offset cam to move legs, open mouths, roll eyes and wave paws on a variety of animal figures. He’s also fine-tuned the toys’ safety features — nontoxic paints, secured wheels, non-swallowable parts, splinter-free finishes.
"For me, animals are a big part of our everyday lives that provide us with a strong connection to nature," says Witte, waving a hand over a tabletop collection of rabbits, horses, sheep and even a shark. "I mean, who hasn’t owned a kitten or puppy sometime in their lives? Who hasn’t felt that these tiny creatures are something special, something to cherish?"
The toymaker says animals — even toy animals — can become a child’s friend, a buddy to take along on explorations of the world. In extreme cases, animals (yes, even toy animals) can help console children and adults who are sad, lonely, grieving or simply stressed out.
"I made a gorilla once," he said with a chuckle, "and then sent it off to college." The wooden ape found a home, Witte says, with college students who used it as a helpful diversion from stressful studies. "Is anything more playful than a monkey?"
A Vietnam veteran and career janitor/maintenance man who still works part time, Witte also helps his wife, Aracelis, with their translation and interpreting business, Accurate Language Systems Inc. Since woodworking and carpentry are often a part of ongoing building maintenance, Witte has had the opportunity, over the years, to learn new skills with a variety of woods and products.
Early in his career, Witte worked on the Boeing team that made wooden mock-ups of the SST, a supersonic jet that never reached production. "But we’d shape nose cones and canopies to exacting standards," he says. "Good practice for later projects."
Raised on a North Dakota farm, Witte was one of 12 children in a family that, he says, "spent a lot of time amid the frog ponds and beaver dams in the landscape around us." Farm life and connection to the land continued when Witte, about age 7, and his family moved to a farm near Ephrata.
"As a kid in the Dakotas, I had a sense that animals in the wild have a sense of freedom that we should cultivate in ourselves," he says. "Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just live naturally and go our merry way?"
In following his own merry way, Witte hopes to use his participation at the farmers market to support the efforts of local growers and craftspeople. "It’s a wonderful thing to see people using their talents to form a local economy based on local production," he says.
"A pipe dream of mine — my Big Idea — is to celebrate our huge agricultural economy by building some kind of ag-based park or center," he says. "It’d be a place where people, not just farmers, could connect with our land and our food, and learn why it’s all so important."
But right now, Witte adds, "it’s the little things in life — and the connections among them — that fascinate me." He picks up a toy frog. "Kids, animals, different kinds of woods, people with skills and talents ... those are what bring joy to life." [rc]
Mike Irwin
irwin@wenatcheeworld.com
Copyright © 2009 World Publishing Co
Toymaker Warren Witte jumped at the chance to sell his wooden toys at the Wenatchee Valley Farmers Market. (World photo/Mike Irwin)
Push-n-pull animals delight both kids and adults
By Mike Irwin
Staff writer
Toymaker Warren Witte sits surrounded by his handcrafted wooden animals — frogs, turtles, a hippo, a kangaroo — and laughs with clear, simple delight.
"Toys bring joy," says the 60-year-old, soft-spoken woodworker, rolling a frog with comically jumpy legs across the patio table. "And animals bring a special joy."
Every weekend, Witte and his push-n-pull friends populate a regular booth at the Wenatchee Valley Farmers Market. His business of handmade wooden toys and figurines, called Artistic Valley Effusions, attracts dozens of kids and parents to its table of paint-your-own playthings, including cars, trucks, trains, tractors, animals and fish.
Over the past decade, the toy designer and artisan has shaped his hobby into a more-than-part-time avocation that’s used different designs, woods, paints and construction techniques to fuse hardwood laminates into all sorts of kid-friendly thingamajigs, including small rocking chairs (with an apple motif) and wooden trains hauling a variety of Wenatchee Valley fruits. The toys are priced from $7 to $25, depending on their intricacy.
In the past year, Witte has primarily focused his creativity on rolling softwood toys that — to get technical — use an offset cam to move legs, open mouths, roll eyes and wave paws on a variety of animal figures. He’s also fine-tuned the toys’ safety features — nontoxic paints, secured wheels, non-swallowable parts, splinter-free finishes.
"For me, animals are a big part of our everyday lives that provide us with a strong connection to nature," says Witte, waving a hand over a tabletop collection of rabbits, horses, sheep and even a shark. "I mean, who hasn’t owned a kitten or puppy sometime in their lives? Who hasn’t felt that these tiny creatures are something special, something to cherish?"
The toymaker says animals — even toy animals — can become a child’s friend, a buddy to take along on explorations of the world. In extreme cases, animals (yes, even toy animals) can help console children and adults who are sad, lonely, grieving or simply stressed out.
"I made a gorilla once," he said with a chuckle, "and then sent it off to college." The wooden ape found a home, Witte says, with college students who used it as a helpful diversion from stressful studies. "Is anything more playful than a monkey?"
A Vietnam veteran and career janitor/maintenance man who still works part time, Witte also helps his wife, Aracelis, with their translation and interpreting business, Accurate Language Systems Inc. Since woodworking and carpentry are often a part of ongoing building maintenance, Witte has had the opportunity, over the years, to learn new skills with a variety of woods and products.
Early in his career, Witte worked on the Boeing team that made wooden mock-ups of the SST, a supersonic jet that never reached production. "But we’d shape nose cones and canopies to exacting standards," he says. "Good practice for later projects."
Raised on a North Dakota farm, Witte was one of 12 children in a family that, he says, "spent a lot of time amid the frog ponds and beaver dams in the landscape around us." Farm life and connection to the land continued when Witte, about age 7, and his family moved to a farm near Ephrata.
"As a kid in the Dakotas, I had a sense that animals in the wild have a sense of freedom that we should cultivate in ourselves," he says. "Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just live naturally and go our merry way?"
In following his own merry way, Witte hopes to use his participation at the farmers market to support the efforts of local growers and craftspeople. "It’s a wonderful thing to see people using their talents to form a local economy based on local production," he says.
"A pipe dream of mine — my Big Idea — is to celebrate our huge agricultural economy by building some kind of ag-based park or center," he says. "It’d be a place where people, not just farmers, could connect with our land and our food, and learn why it’s all so important."
But right now, Witte adds, "it’s the little things in life — and the connections among them — that fascinate me." He picks up a toy frog. "Kids, animals, different kinds of woods, people with skills and talents ... those are what bring joy to life." [rc]
Mike Irwin
irwin@wenatcheeworld.com
Copyright © 2009 World Publishing Co
