Figure maker
Brant Gilmer
An Ohio carver with a three-year waiting list who has stayed almost entirely out of sight for forty years.
Gilmer works in basswood and also makes musical instruments and furniture. His range runs to standard boys and girls, old men, animals, and at least one talking bar stool. The site's maker directory says he has been carving figures since 1985; his own first figure, which he sold at the 2012 ConVENTion, is dated 1984.
He has stayed deliberately quiet and out of sight and still carries a waiting list of about three years. He now uses cast hands rather than carving them.
The mechanics
Slot jaw with side-to-side self-centering eyes, on figures carved throughout — head, body and, in the older work, hands.
The figures
39 photographs across 3 cataloged objects. Each object is one entry in the register — where a character name covers two physical figures, they stay two entries, because the character outlives the object more often than the record admits.
Danny Dog 10 photographs
- Size
- 40"
- Materials
- carved wood
- Movements
- slot jaw / moving mouth; self-centering eyes
Recorded owner Ventriloquist Central Collection as stated on the source page when it was written — not current ownership
Very First 9 photographs
- Size
- 42"
- Movements
- slot jaw / moving mouth; self-centering eyes; head stick
- Dates given
- 1984; 2012
Recorded owner Ventriloquist Central Collection as stated on the source page when it was written — not current ownership
Knucklehead Smiff 8 photographs
- Size
- 42"
- Materials
- basswood; carved wood
- Movements
- slot jaw / moving mouth; self-centering eyes; side-to-side eyes
- Dates given
- 2010
From the collection pages 12 photographs
Photographs on Brant Gilmer’s index and reference pages rather than on a single figure’s entry — portraits, shop material and close studies of one detail across several figures. They are not counted as objects in the register.
