The cliché "a chip off the old block" certainly applies to retired librarian Marilyn Coe. The daughter of a wood carver, Marilyn inherited his carving tools several years ago and has continued the family legacy.
Her current project is a 300-pound block of old walnut that her father discovered about 40 years ago. It sits on Marilyn’s porch, waiting to become a work of art. Sooner or later, after hours of chipping, carving, shaving, sanding and whatever it takes to make the wood block take form, a female figure will emerge.
Marilyn doesn’t sell her work but donates it to friends and various charities. “It takes so long to carve a piece, I could never put a price on the finished artworks, so I just give them away,” Marilyn says.
A recently completed piece sits in her wooded side yard where Marilyn often spends quiet time with her cats. Two of her favorites are “The Magi” and a smaller carving of an octopus mounted on an antique music box. The pelican was carved by her late father.
A member and officer of the Democratic Women’s Club, Marilyn worked tireless during the 2008 Obama campaign and brought a carving she had done years earlier to the campaign headquarters (as a symbolic mascot) that had a striking resemblance to then candidate Barack Obama.
Marilyn is just one of the many creative and talented women who are part of the Walton County political and artistic community.
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