Meet more makers in the November/December 2026 feature.
Decades into his woodworking career, Ben LaBudde is still discovering the craft — and himself. “I like waiting to see what the wood reveals,” he says. “Woodcarving takes patience. You’re largely teaching yourself, learning the angle, how to hold the tool, how to sharpen it, what it does. It’s like teaching yourself to play a musical instrument and applying yourself.”
The F.J. Reitz High School and then-Indiana State University Evansville graduate truly learned to appreciate woodworking as a longtime carver at Karges Furniture. “It was the first time I had access to good tools,” he says. “That was really my education.”
LaBudde honed his skills by doing side jobs. “A lot of it was replacing richly carved pieces on old, old furniture,” he says. When the famed furniture manufacturer was acquired by Kindel Furniture and left Evansville in 2014, LaBudde “semi-retired,” he says, and took a maintenance job with the Robert Lee Blaffer Foundation in New Harmony, Indiana. He officially retired three years ago.
At his workshop in New Harmony, he has explored woodworking beyond recreations of family crests and commemorative plaques. “I’ve always felt a strong connection with trees and the forest, and what they’ve meant for human development, and for ecology,” he says. He has acquired a large supply of first-growth planks of poplar, white oak, and pine cut over 100 years ago for barns and buildings. “It frustrates me immensely that people don’t know how precious these materials are,” he says. “It’s a waste for someone just to burn it or throw it away.”
LaBudde has moved away from commissions and reproductions and is giving more agency to his own ideas, which often involve natural elements such as flora and trees. “I’m in a period where I want to create artistic and gallery pieces,” he says. “I’m creating more for myself now. It’s absolutely more fulfilling.” Although LaBudde occasionally exhibits his work at regional arts and crafts shows such as the upcoming Christmas in New Harmony, “the capitalistic part is not remotely in my head,” he says.
Words in Wood
One of Ben LaBudde’s largest commissions was carving the Lord’s Prayer into a 4-by-3-foot piece of oak. The client consulted two priests before deciding which version to use.
