JAAP DEELDER, who was born at the Dutch island of Terschelling, made at the age of seventeen his first wooden sculpture. ”A golden eagle”, remembered the autodidact, who also teaches children with a intellectual disability. ”Nature used to inspire me and it still does.”
Especially birds are Deelders favourite objects, who he still makes out of one piece of wood. ”You cannot cut something out of a random piece of wood. You have to find appropriate wood for your subject. It can also be that the shape of a certain piece of wood provides me with a particular idea. The nature of the material, hardness, colour, grain, knots and shape, define the finishing touch. This can vary from a ‘prickling’ smooth piece of work as a result of sandpapering and polishing on the one hand, and leaving the coarse chisel and gouge visible.”
Deelder works in a reductive way which means that he removes material until it represents the shape of the model. He starts with tools such as a (chain) saw, and works to the end-result by using more and more refined tools such as chisels and files. The stubborn material that Deelder uses, requires a careful approach. As a chess player he tries to think some moves ahead, whereby he takes into account the features and the limitations of the kind of wood he is working with. The hardness defines the extent to which the details can be carved out, the grain the direction of thin parts as beaks and paws. Before this crafty process can start, Deelder needs to ‘see’ the sculpture in the piece of wood in front of him.
The artist likes birds because of their beautiful shapes. With his sculptures, he pays a tribute to them. Deelder strives in his work for an ”ornithological correctness” whereby the sculpture should raise a certain ”artistic tension”.
The artist does not have a clear cut preference for certain kinds of wood. In fact, his chisel works both native kinds of wood such as elm, oak, ash, maple tree, pine tree, yew tree, poplar and elderberry as well as tropical ebony. On top of that, he also carves sculptures out of Belgium stone and marble.
In 1990, Deelder participated in the project ”Wind, Wad & Water paint”, whereby an international group of 25 artists Schiermonnikoog depicts. Two years later, he went with 31 artists to the swampy area close to the Polish rivers Biebzra and Narew which is also near to the Russian border. In 1994, he was –again under the colours of the Artists for Nature Foundation (ANF)– with 57 artist in the Spanish Extremadura, the biggest hibernation area of the North European common crane. Deelder was also part of the group of 15 ANF artists, who paid a visit to the Irish Wexfordcoast in 1996. In 2000, the sculptor was one of the 20 artists who –at the invitation of gallery Het PostHuys– used the landscape of Texel as a source of inspiration. This project resulted in the book ”Texel in Schoonheid verbeeld” (Texel depicted in beauty). In 2001, he contributed as the only Dutchman to the ANF project in the Catalan Pyrénées in order to protect the forest. With 18 other artists, he visited Peru and Ecuador in order to depict the last dry woods in the region of Tumbasion which is situated to the west of Andes, in 2003. In 2004/2005 Deelder was involved in the ”Great Fen” project in England.

His sculptures can be admired at exhibitions, for instance KUNSTGALERIE OOG VOOR NATUUR, an artgallery in Opheusden. Apart from the Netherlands, he also exhibits his works in Belgium, United Kingdom, Ireland, Poland, Spain, Sweden and in the United States of America at the LEIGH YAWKEY WOODSON ART MUSEUM at the ”Birds in Art” exhibition in 1987.

Two of his sculptures are part of the collection of the British Museum, NATURE IN ART. In 1991, at the yearly exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists, he gets awarded for having made the best sculpture of a barn owl made out of wood.