Sculptor

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other venues like fairs and festivals where crowds would congregate. He has now been creating tiki art for 27 years.

His sculpting all is done by hammer and chisel with no electronic equipment involved. And Mr. Vollinino's muse is unpredictable.

"I have no vision of what I want my sculpture to look like when I pick up my chisel," he said. "Sometimes, I have a vague idea of what expression I want the figure to have. I don't like to plan what I'm doing. I can't predict where the chisel will go, I just let it go where it needs to."

He said he doesn't like to remake carvings from the past.

"I don't like taking orders," he said. "I am not into manufacturing the same works of art over and over again. If I like the work I've made, I have a real inclination that other people will like it, too."

He gets the wood he uses for his carvings, normally sabal palm or driftwood, from various sources. He takes wood out of people's yards and other venues by request.

"People say the hurricanes did me a big favor by knocking down so many trees," he said. "They don't realize I have to let the tree dry and cure for a substantial length of time."

Mr. Vollinino has a reservoir of logs behind his residence that age in a shaded area for about a year and a half.

"I don't do carvings on live trees because they have a tendency to crack and break," Mr. Vollinino said. "If you let the log set out too long, the wood gets too hard to do any work, like petrified wood."

Through the years he said working at something he loves to do is incredibly rewarding.

"I wake up in the morning excited about what I do," Mr. Vollinino said. "If I ever won the lottery, I would be back carving tikis the next day. I might be doing it from a bigger residence. I really love what I do. I don't think I would ever retire from this."

He sculpts for the public, sometimes at private restaurants like the Mather's Bridge restaurant and Conchy Joe's restaurants about twice a week. Sometimes he does carving for children in public schools.

"The kids really love when I carve for them," he said. "The variety of jobs elementary school kids see is like engineers, cops and me. They really respond well when they see what the finished product looks like."

Home & Garden television will be in Brevard County June 18 and June 19. The is not yet an expected air date for the show.