Excerpt taken from Star-Telegram
Emu farmer carves out a new niche for himself in the art world by Jon McConal

He's 48, a huge, strong man with thinning brown hair and a mustache.  He showed me into his workshop at his emu farm east of Cresson off U. S. 377 at 235 s. Skyline Court.

This is where I build the stands for the eggs," he said.  "I make them out of pine, mahogany, purple heart and other woods."

The stands are pretty.  Nearby are several five gallon buckets filled with drained emu eggs.

"An emu will lay from 20 to 60 eggs in its season," he said." But only about one egg out of 60 is worth carving because they are not smooth enough."

Then he led me to his studio inside the Gunn's house.  There on a shelf were several of his creations.  They range from profiles of John Wayne and Elvis to American Indians to farm scenes.

"An emu egg has seven layer," he said." But you can only work with the first four.  Each one of those is a different color, ranging from dark to opaque to dark green and white."

He gets the image onto the eggs by gluing a picture onto the shell and then carving it out.

"I work from eight hours to a week on each egg," he said.

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He showed a photograph of a carving of an American Indian named Chief Standing Bear.  He won second place with this in the Eggs International Exhibit in Dallas.  

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So, did he ever study art?

"No," he said. "Never.  Come on and I'll show you what gave me the ability to do this."

He led me into his garage, pulled a covering from a beautifully painted 1933 Plymouth four-door sedan.  He opened the door and pointed at the overhead panel, which has exquisite carvings on a slab of oak.

"I did that by hand," he said. "Without that car, I never would have learned how to do the eggs."