About Heartwood Carving

Heartwood Carving is dedicated to creating quality ornamental carvings and architectural details to enhance residences, businesses and luxury motor coaches. We believe that integral artistic wood carvings and architectural accents in our living and work places contribute daily to our well-being and sense of harmony.

Heartwood Carving Background

Heartwood Carving is located in Eugene, Oregon.

Heartwood Carving grew out of a long search for a new way to reproduce carved artworks in wood. Back in 1989, while completing a large carved mural, sculptor and carver Joe Valasek decided he needed a new carving technique. He'd spent years developing ways to create textures for his award-winning carved landscapes, which made extensive use of electric tools; he reasoned that a type of machine he'd seen in Germany roughing out statues could be made to replicate his relief artworks. As it turned out they couldn't, but ten years later, after much experimentation, a worldwide search and new developments in software, he felt he'd finally succeeded.

The Heartwood Carving staff.

Still, the problem of building an automated wood carving business out of unique carving processes remained and that's when Martin Grant and Joe Olma stepped into the picture. Joe Olma had years of experience running a large and complex company aided by Martin Grant who provided vast technical and design know-how. Their skills, combined with Valasek's sculpting techniques and carving experience, resulted in Heartwood Carving's wide range of abilities relating to wood carving, CNC (computer numeric control) machining, and mold making.