The Double Tap

 Last  year I was commissioned to make a tap handle for Cooperstown's largest and best loved Belgian-style brewery for their annual event Belgium Comes To Cooperstown. This year In celebration their fifteenth anniversary, Brewery Ommegang asked me to carve two more for them. My instructions were that the handles should be Mayan in theme (due, doubtlessly to the impending apocalypse), incorporate the Roman numeral "XV" and possibly look aged. other than that, I was given complete autonomy and a more or less reasonable deadline. Here is what I came up with:

 For the first one I thought that I'd play with the idea of hieroglyphs.I designed a series of abstracted symbols for beer ingredients, the brewing process and Ommegang itself.

 The piece is crowned with the Ommegang "O" and a version of the Ommegang Lion. I was hoping it would look a bit more like glyphs of Jaguar

 The Ancient Mayan Glyph for Hops:

 Side View:

 A drop of water Glyph:

 Ommegang is a bottle conditioned ale, so I commemorated that with a pouring bottle and cork:

 The four Mayan faces around  the bottom panel symbolize the fact I needed something cool looking down there:

 Back Top- This one depicts the fermenting tanks of the brewery, A goblet (which is the only way to enjoy a fine Belgian ale!) and the Ommegang double diamond.:

 The Roman numeral for fifteen. I wanted to work it into the shaft of the handle rather than crowning with it so the whole piece wouldn't look so blocky

 It's hard to tell but this is brewer's yeast. I defy anyone to come up with a better made up Mayan glyph for yeast! i'ts much harder than it sounds:

 Barley, on the other hand was easy:

 And finally the glyph for sugar. Yeast eats the naturally occurring sugars, and thus fermentation. I am well aware that sugarcane isn't involved in the process it's next to impossible to represent that abstract a concept in wood relief.. I claim artistic license!:

Here's the whole thing again the finish is done by my smoke process and accented with gold paint:

 For the second tap I wanted to create one of those terrific blocky figurative carvings. I settled on Quetzalcoatl the feathered serpent because he's probably the most iconic of the Mayan symbols. Also, I think he looks cool. to age this piece, I first painted it with acrylics. I then sanded away most of the paint and smoked it up. If I had the time I might have also buried it for a month.Quetzalcoatl is always depicted as having five plumes or tails. I couldn't find out why.

Here is the "XV" on Quetzalcoatl's headdress. If I could have  done one thing differently, I would have repainted the numerals so they stood out more. I told the good  folk at Ommegang they were free to do so. I hope they have.

 A close up of Quetzalcoatl's face:

Well there you have it! Hope you enjoyed