A native of Framingham, Massachusetts, Ken Whitney spent his summers growing up at his grandparents’ farm in East Machias, Maine. In the fifth grade he began working in woodshop. His seventh-grade teacher wanted his parents to send him to art school. His first job was at Patti and Mancy’s gas station. The first car he bought was a 1934 Ford convertible. After graduating high school, he followed a friend into the Marine Corps. Ken remembers that there was a hurricane on the day he enlisted. After his military service, he attended Orange Coast College of art, where his teacher, Vincent Ferrell, recommended him to Otis College. At Otis, Ken studied with Joseph Mariani. He has worked restoring antique furniture and had his own antique store on Newport Blvd. in Costa Mesa, California, for seventeen years. He currently designs and creates carved furniture, detailed carved mahogany rooms, wood sculpture, and carvings. He also creates acrylic paintings, mounted in original handmade frames. In 2020, Ken was the main subject of a documentary short by art filmmaker Eric Minh Swenson.
