Vintage Wisconsin Folk Art Wooden Sculpture Whirligig Signed Ivan John Bambic. What a wonderful piece of Folk art from this talented wood carver in Wisconsin. This was known as Devil Has your Tongue! Carved and painted wood with moving parts. The wood fork has been reglued as shown. This Guy was so Talented! It will be carefully packed an insured. The following is an article from Joe Astouski for an article in Oct, 2015 In “Wisconsin Life” John was born 10 1921. The shelves in Ivan “John” Bambic’s basement are lined with unique characters carved out of wood: butchers, carpenters, shepherds, even a red-horned devil grabbing the tongue of an overly-talkative spouse. Send a breeze in their direction (by blowing or turning a shop vac in reverse) and the characters come to life. They’re whirligigs, wind-powered carvings that seem to come to life, and John has been carving them for decades. “Everybody has some hobby, ” Bambic said. Knife and saw. That’s all I need. A lot of paint. The characters Bambic carves are inspired by his childhood in the then-Yugoslavian nation of Slovenia. There, Bambic’s family were farmers. “We had a pretty big farm for there. Not like America, ” Bambic said. We had three, four horses and about five cows. In the early 1940s, war broke out in Slovenia between loyalists and communist-led partisans. Bambic, then 19, was drafted. “One day I go to the army for four years, fighting against the communists, ” Bambic remembered. Then, Russians came to help the communists, and we must go away from there. It was a hard time. When I was 19 years old, I was the last time at my house. I never saw any more (of) my parents. After the war, Bambic spent four years living in a displaced persons camp in Austria. While there, he met a woman named Mary. The two married, and in 1950 they moved to Milwaukee. Once in the United States, Bambic found work at Pfister & Vogel, a leather company in Milwaukee. “I worked 32 years there. Never missed a day of work, ” Bambic said. Where I (was) working, you don’t hear English. Just Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian, any language but English. In the 1960s, Slovenians living in Wisconsin set out to build their own park near Wind Lake in Racine County. As they cleared the brush, Bambic found inspiration. “At Wind Lake was a big linden tree, and I cut it down, and I remembered from the old country, one guy made a cut from a linden tree, ” Bambic said. I took a piece home, of this tree. Although he had no training, Bambic began carving the wood, making noisemakers and whirligigs like those he remembered from Slovenia. There, they were used to scare birds away from crops. “First one, I made a guy who’s sawing wood, ” Bambic said, adding that many of the characters and scenes in his carvings come from childhood memories. It’s all from the head, you know. Blacksmith was across the street. I was there, I see him. Butcher. I worked there by the butcher shop. Bambic has carved hundreds of whirligigs, often donating them to fundraisers or giving them as gifts to his children and grandchildren. “Now I got to take it easy, ” Bambic said. I’m 92 years old. Don’t go so fast. Please see photos for more condition details and consider them part of the description. Thanks for looking and have a GREAT day! If you are happy with your product, please leave me Feedback. I will try my best to resolve any problems you may have. I want to make sure that you have the best experience possible. Please feel free to let me know if there is anything I can do to make your experience better. Thanks for looking and have a great day.