By MADELINE REIDA

Staff writer

Lifelong woodcarver John Fredrickson bought Gallery 101 in Marion last week and plans to use it to display and sell some of the hundreds of completed projects stored in his basement.

He started carving when he was a teenager.

“I picked it up on my own,” he said. “I used to live in California, and back then in the ‘60s, I was carving a lot of things out of palm trees.”

He frequently works now with oak and walnut wood, putting together large furniture pieces.

“I carve anything that happens to hit my mind,” he said. “I make a lot of coffee grinders, jewelry boxes, end tables, nightlights, kaleidoscopes — anything that happens to hit my mind.”

In the past six months, many of his pieces have featured wood fracturing or wood fracking. Electricity is pumped into exposed wood to burn branching patterns.

“I saw it online, so I decided to try it,” he said.

Fredrickson was among the artists whose work was featured at Gallery 101 before it closed in 2019. Sale of the gallery was delayed for months by health issues for both parties.

Fredrickson’s son, past Marion public works supervisor Marty Fredrickson, also is a carver. He has a few pieces in the gallery as well.

Previous owner Jan Davis said her husband stored his own wood carving equipment in the building.

Fredrickson is cleaning the building and unsure when he will reopen it. For now, a few of his pieces are displayed in windows, and his cigar box collection is sitting inside.

“It’s just something to do when I’m retired,” he said, “one of the things you do to try to keep yourself from going nuts.”