Gerald Copeland
Mayetta, Kansas. Gerald Copeland is a self-taught carver known for meticulous, lifelike realism — fingernails, veins, wrinkles, buttons, and muscle tone rendered faithfully in wood. A trim carpenter by trade, he fell in love with carving on a 1977 visit to Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri, and taught himself the craft, sculpting each piece first in clay and wire before transferring the design to wood. His work has earned many Best of Show honors — including First and Second Best of Show at the 2006 International Wood Carvers Congress in Davenport, Iowa — and has been shown at Silver Dollar City, Peter Engler Designs in Branson, galleries in Estes Park, Colorado, and the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka.
