Please enjoy the following music as I did these dark winter days
Jim White-Drill A Hole In That Substrate And Tell Me What You See
I've been noticing the accumulation of things the older I get. Not just material things, for I am a timber hoarder, but also the intangibles. Experiences are accumulated along with relationships, knowledge, emotions, responsibilities, ideas, and visions. For me, it's becoming a bit overbearing. All that residue from the highway mileage tends to cake onto the undercarriage.
My entire woodworking life (over twenty years of thoughtful or paid building) has been predicated on the idea of an "additive process." Things need to be joined. Hence the classic term for a woodworker as a "joiner." The peak of this skill was when I dove headfirst into Japanese joinery where the joints were intricate, structural, and elegant. I was definitely chasing the skill but also the labor and the end result.
Joining is taxing. It also implies that the structure is growing, getting larger. And after years of working on large heavy timbers by myself with exhaustive joinery, I'm a little tired. Or at least craving some simplicity.
Carving or sculpting is the antithesis of joining. It's a "subtractive" process; eliminating all that doesn't serve the end state. As I pare away more and more material, the object becomes smaller, lighter, more manageable. I think this is what attracted me to carving to begin with; the paring away of unhelpful or obstructing material in my life.
Still, I don't think this subtractive process is possible without the accumulation of the miles for myself or the growth rings for the timber. Otherwise, there'd be nothing to pare back.
This Haida style frog was fun to carve. All I did was find an off cut of some of my Atlantic white cedar and went for it without much consideration other than basic symmetry and traditional motif. Committing to this process of "unthinking" is the most difficult part but also the most rewarding.
The white stringy and spongey sapwood was completely undesirable and a pain to carve. But the pink and yellow heartwood was like slicing into frozen butter. Such a pleasure. I wish I had removed more of the sapwood before starting. It's best to just move on instead of refining this. I want to keep the momentum going.
I asked my daughter what I should carve next, keeping the Pacific Amerindian styles going. I thought a beaver. She said shark. I was going to ignore her request and stick to the beaver but then I found another off cut of the white cedar that was just begging to be carved into a shark.
I could write a whole dispatch on how fascinated I am by Pacific Northwest Amerindian art and the nuances, skill, and cultural meaning behind it. But I think I'll save that for another time. Not sure anyone reading here is nearly as fascinated as I am.
That's enough introspection. By now you're well past ready to flush the toilet or the highway traffic from the rubberneckers has lightened up. Next week I'll get back to big chainsaws and sharp blades. I recently milled some black cherry (prunus serotina) that yielded something special.
MTF.