The website Wowwood about wood art has received more than 100,000 visitors since February 2025. This weekend of January 17-18, 2026, the milestone was crossed with 100,656 visitors. Lately Wowwood welcomes more than 350 people per day.
Wowwood now receives 100,000 visitors per year, with own sculptures and those of famous artists.
On Wowwood they find short biographies of famous artists who have worked in wood. From Picasso to Jeff Koons. In total, by late January 2026, about one hundred articles have been published on the website.
Started out of anger
I started Wowwood out of anger. When I myself learned to work with gouges, I wanted to know everything about wood in art history. I understood that an American art book, ‘the Janson’s, belongs to the required professional literature. It would be in all bookcases of art academies and also in those of curators and museum directors.
But what a disappointment that turned out to be. In this thick American tome of more than 1000 pages, wood carving art ended around 1455 with the sculpture of Mary Magdalene by Donatello. Even later art sculptures, such as those of Dadaism, could not bring the total number of illustrations with wood to over 25. A completely worthless handbook then, for a creative woodworker. I’ll do it myself then, I thought to myself.
Provocative and opinionated
I am glad that so many people are already enjoying all the names and artworks I have collected in Wowwood. The biographies are more journalistic than academic, even though I first read carefully what art historians observe.
My angle is often more provocative than the texts of a curator or an art critic. More opinionated too. Wowwood deliberately chooses the perspective of the maker, not of the display case. That’s why I always try to trace the working methods of the artists, such as the wood species they work with, their tools. The craftsmanship aspect of woodworking is completely undervalued by the formal art world. It is therefore an unwritten page.
Completely unjustly. Through years of research I discovered that very big names of artists remarkably often worked with wood at the beginning of their career. It helped with their idea and concept formation. I traced very early wooden sculptures by Picasso and Karel Appel for example, but also those of many others.
I also show on Wowwood my search for my own original work. I see a clear development in the use of wood, where the story hidden in the wood itself becomes increasingly important. It has to do with time, with sustainable thinking.
Design by Mother Nature
I have coined this thinking Dendroism, after the Greek word Dendro, which means ‘tree’. With this, Wowwood has also become a platform for artists and all other wood carvers with great respect for the unsurpassed design talent of Mother Nature.
I count myself among that group of admirers too. I also publish my own work in wood on Wowwood, which I make at the studio of Guts en Klopper in Huis ter Heide. My ideas for my own works come mainly from my background as editor-in-chief of P+ (People Planet Profit), the media platform for sustainable developments. Wowwood is part of this.
My first book, in which I present Dendroism as an art movement, will be published this year by publisher Atticus. Keep posted and thank you for your interest.
Jan Bom, January 19, 2026
Statistics from January 19, 2026: within a year 100,656 visitors. Now almost 400 per day, a strongly increasing number.
