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Eagle Heads

Figureheads get lots of attention in maritime museum exhibits. There are even museum collections of figureheads lost at sea. Often, the names of the ships they graced are unknown. If we knew, we could reconstruct a travelogue of all the ports they’d seen.

But many ships lacked figureheads. The old figure went overboard in a storm, or if the owners were Quakers, religious sentiments forbade a figurehead. In its place, a billet head—a bit of fancy carved scrollwork with a small bust or other ornament on top—was used.

While I love figureheads, I’ve never seen the business interest in carving them – much too restricted as a trade. Instead, I’ve carved small billet heads for the sort of small vessel that could sport them these days. Many of the ones I’ve carved hold up signs, grace entryways, or act as bookends. Billet heads are attractive and we can size them for smaller vessels, boats, or home use.

The photo above shows a sample of the billet heads I’ve carved. The green scroll was the first one I did. I simplified my version from a traditional design Jay Hanna carved. The three eagles are of my design but modeled on traditional 19th-century styles. My favorite is closest to the viewer. I carved it in western sugar pine and made the mounting element from mahogany.

The eyes on the eagles are the most essential part of the carving. The feathers look complex but are pretty simple. Get the eyes right, though, and the birdie seems to follow you about the room, casting a gimlet eye on your doings.
Better behave. They see everything you are doing – in jest or earnest.

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More on Tools

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, a Drummer was not just a percussionist. A drummer was a traveling salesman who’d make the rounds with tools, clothes, or anything else you might wish to purchase but could not easily find at the small retail establishments in your town. Think no internet, no Walmart, and few large department stores.
Now think about trade carvers; that’s right, there were many of them. They designed and made patterns and signs and carved the furniture decorations one at a time. Anything to be cast, machined, or reproduced required making an original master, and the carver was the individual who did that. With a good number of craftspeople to serve, there were tool makers who catered to these specialists.

The photo shows a collection of tools I am using for some tight recess carving on the jib sails of the ship portrait I am working on. The tools are primarily tiny back bents and knuckle tools that will fit into tight recesses. There are only a few manufacturers of these today, and I don’t like the design of their tools. So I purchased, for short money, this batch of C. Maier tools. The company was in business from about 1880 to maybe 1928 in Newark, NJ. Most of the tools I’ve seen that they produced are like those I bought – back bents, knuckles, and fishtails – good tools for working in recesses or miniature work.

The ones I purchased were in amazingly good shape but well-used. The carver who owned them before me was likely not their original owner. They are good tools that have lasted through at least three owners.
Nowadays, I go to a tool retailer and order online, but when these tools showed up in their first owner’s shop, that was not possible. Without the World Wide Web or specialty tool stores, they might have mail-ordered from a catalog or had a visit from a Drummer who would have shown them the tools, let them handle them, and taken their order.

Special needs are why carvers wind up with racks of tools, not a sort of wild tool lust.

OK, I’m lying. It’s a necessity, but also tool lust…I need a twelve-step program.
Hi, I am Lou Carreras. I’m addicted to buying tools.

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Mastery

Yesterday, I spent a significant part of the day working on a carving of a large schooner. I based it on research I did for an earlier schooner built by the same yard around the same time in the late 19th century. 

I used skills acquired in the earlier carving to ease the work on the sails’ design. The sails on a vessel like this are most of what you see. So having their contours “look” right, not just be shaped “right,” is critical. After finishing the earlier carving, I spent time analyzing the degree of satisfaction I had with design execution. There were places where my techniques failed to give the correct effect on the jib sails. How I added the masts also looked like a very inadequate paste job – they needed to be proportioned correctly.

So, I figured out a better way to cut in the background around the jibs’ tack . They’ll look crisper in the carving, now. Next I’ll be experimenting with how the masts are tapered and colored ( very lightly). My skill set as a carver grew.

Now for the rant part of this post. Anyone who’s been involved in a quality control process or recognizes the term Kaizen will understand what I am about here. As an artist or crafter, I am not static. I don’t just have a standard job that I repeat infinitely. This is what I have against the concept of being a “Master.” The term carries more than a hint of being a survivor of a race to a pinnacle – a point of stasis. Stasis is precisely what I do not want in my work.

I recollect watching seventh and eighth-dan sensei (seventh and eighth-degree black belts in Japanese swordsmanship) gently pointing out flaws in kata to one another. Even at their degree of mastery, there was room for improvement. That’s the sort of mastery I aspire to – skill sets and concepts of working continually growing.

In art and craft, mastery is a moving target, which is healthy.

Daily writing prompt
What are you good at?
View all responses
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A Birchwood Bowl in process

Photographs help me remember steps and processes. Years ago, I used photography only to record the results. But pictures of the in-between stages were more than a bit helpful. One of the big reasons I say this is because there are some things that I only do rarely. Reminders are valuable.
I need to be a better journalist. I may or may not have a series of notes on processes, like how I finished a particular project five years ago. If I have not, then a photographic record helps to prompt memory. In the case of this bowl, I have a short series of shots.

Prominent in some of these photos is the gooseneck scraper. Why? Because a well-sharpened and burnished gooseneck is the most effective tool for removing the rough marks and scratches of earlier gouge and sanding work. The temptation is to sand it and forgo the scraping. However, the scraper saves labor and reduces the amount of sanding required.


In the above photo, the bowl has reached the stage where the interior, the most challenging place to finish on a small bowl, is almost done. I’ve given it a first coat of a food-safe varnish to see the grain of the soon-to-be-finished bowl. The finish also reveals the spots that are still rough.

I made this bowl from a piece of birch I found in my pile of firewood. It had nice grain and was deep and wide enough to create a pretty bowl. As firewood, I find birch only so-so. But I am always scouting the firewood for material that can be up-cycled into valuable things. Hopefully, someday, someone will prize the little bowl and find pleasure in running hands along its contours and gazing at the twists in the grain.

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The Woodcarver and the Sunk Cost Fallacy

If you studied economics, process engineering or are an enthusiast of popular psychology, you might have heard of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. It’s alive and well in woodcarving too. Sunk costs are costs you have paid and can’t get back. 

That’s fine if everything works out. But if the project just hasn’t been the success you wished for, the temptation is to keep trying to fix it. Sometimes it can’t be fixed. And that’s the sunk cost fallacy: The belief that just one more project revision will allow the Goony Bird Mk 29 to fly.

I knew the fallacy well. I called it “just one more cut.” The piece will work with one more cut to clean up that angle. Five cuts later, the chip carving is worse off than when I started. I was most familiar with it from chip carving because some of the balance and symmetry of a piece come from all cuts sharing similar geometry; if one facet is out of balance, the carving looks odd.

I saw it a lot more when I started teaching. I start my courses with chip carving to teach tool control and the importance of sharp tools. An occasional student could not stop cutting and adjusting. Rarely did any of this result in a saved piece of work. I described it to my students at WoodenBoat School as “just one more cut.”

Later, over dinner, an engineer in my class told me about the sunk cost fallacy. As I write this, I can think of an eagle I’ve carved that I’d love to take one more cut on. See, it’s pervasive.

Here’s some advice I’ve offered that applies well here:

  •  First, turn the carving bottom for the top; how bad is the perceived defect? 
  • Second, using a hand mirror, view the work from various perspectives; once again, how bad is the defect? 
  • Third, put down the tools and work on something else for the rest of the day. Come back later. 
  • Fourth, study the effect of the corrective cut before you do it. What are the chances of that cut fixing the problem? 
  • Fifth, when realizing you’ve wasted hours mulling over ten minutes of carving, throw the junk into the kindling bucket and do it right. It’s harder to do the further along the piece is; I’m not telling you that I have no struggles with this.

So, Robert Elliot, a colleague of mine who produces gorgeous Windsor chairs, once scolded me that we can’t just throw everything that had a mistake away. We have to learn how to fix errors. That’s the value of the first steps, knowing what we did wrong, thinking about how it can be fixed, and evaluating if it’s worth fixing. Hopefully, we will learn enough to avoid repeat errors and the frustration of endlessly falling into the sunk cost fallacy. 

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Zaida “sits” for her portrait

Although the steam yacht Zaida sits within the frame on the wall, it is not quite complete. More steel wool rubbing is needed on the oil-varnish finish, and the sails’ detailing needs recutting where final sanding is removed it. I also may gold leaf the filigree at the bow. But I needed a break from work and wanted to see how it looked hung the wall.

This is my second run at the Steam Yacht Zaida. I’ve used different techniques and am more satisfied with the outcome.
To be clear, I do not do scale models. This is neither flat art nor scale modeling. It’s very much in line with the 19th century Dioramas that sailors made of the vessels they served on.

Zaida was built in 1910 at the J.S. White yard In Cowes, England. I’ve shown her here as she appears in the builders drawing. The drawing suggested a seriously overrigged arrangement which included a square yard forward and the possibility of a large staysail amidships. I doubt she ever flew that much canvas since she is described as a twin-screw auxiliary schooner.
For this portrait, I’ve reduced the sail plan to something more modest for the deck division to handle. However, at 149 feet in length, she must have had a relatively large crew.

In 1916 Zaida became an auxiliary Patrol vessel in the Royal Navy, armed with six-pound guns. Unfortunately, she was sunk while on patrol near Alexandria that August.

What’s involved in making one of these portraits? First, research, then selective compression of what you will include, and then carving. Research may be as easy as using a builders illustration to figure out the lines for a small sailboat like a small sloop or catboat. But on a larger vessel, especially an older one, research may never yield the sort of completion you wish. For every ship for which a plan exists in a research library or online database, thousands exist only in grainy photos and magazine articles. Sometimes these are the most interesting.

background being leveled
The carving with some of the research material
carving mostly complete
final stages

After research, you must create a plan for the hull, sail, stacks, and other parts. Sometimes commercial parts exist, but other times it all must be fabricated. Then you can start carving, and in many ways, that is the easy part. The total number of hours? For Zaida, about five hours of research, five of design, and fourteen for carving. Finishing is about four hours. So Zaida required about twenty-eight to thirty hours total. Of course, all this varies depending upon the size, research required, and amount of carving and finishing.

A small sloop is relatively quick to do. And small sloops, catboats, and schooners make up most of the portraits. Something like Zaida is for stretching your skills.

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Paper and Scissors

I found the wood sitting in the shorts at my favorite hardwood dealer. It was very dark, heavy, and dense. It was mahogany but so dark and heavy that I felt it was a wayward piece of Dominican, not Honduran. It was just what I wanted.
I wanted to create a banner with a distinctive font, Barnhard Modern. I also wanted to give the banner a center and ends that undulate. The result was pleasing. At shows, people run their hands over the banner as a sensual experience, precisely what I wanted.

How do you do this? You must carve banner ends to appear delicate when viewed from a distance. But up close, there needs to be enough heft that they’ll stand up to the abuse they’ll get on a boat’s transom. For a show display, you have to compromise. People are way closer to the carving than they would be in another boat.

Many banners have curvature, but in most, the area which is lettered is flat. On MANDALAY, the field of the lettering undulates. So, the lettering does not stay in the same plane while laying it out or carving it. To experiment with this, I advise using wood no less than 8/4 in thickness. Any less will be too thin for the effect to work.

First, I carved the banner with all its curves and undulations. It’s essential to control your pleasure in removing wood. Easy. Remember that the effect comes from the smoothness of the curves and contours. Abrupt changes will ruin the look. Periodically take a break to place it in natural light. Turn it upside down and see if the movement of the wood flows.
For lettering, you have several options: Old School layout by hand; or New School computer layout in vinyl or paper. I chose a compromise between hand layout and computer layout on paper. The key to the paper template here is that the paper is flat, and the surface is not – hence the title: Paper & Scissors because cutting the paper will allow you to follow the undulating surface.
To follow the undulations, you slice the areas between the letters to get them to lay in the correct planes. As you layout, you also need to adjust the kerning ( distance between the letters). When completed, take the design into natural light, turn it upside down, and check to see if it still looks proportionate and balanced. I left this for a day and returned to it fresh the next morning; rested eyes see mistakes. I also find that taking photos on my phone reveals things my eyes sometimes miss.

After the layout was complete, the letter carving was like any other letter carving project. The finish is about eleven coats of Captain’s Z-Spar rubbed out after the first three priming coats and each succeeding one. The lettering I painted with One-Shot yellow sign paint. Two thin coats are better than a single thick covering.

Although gold leafing is an entirely separate topic, I advise that you do yourself an enormous favor and allow the varnish to cure before gold leafing. Remember that’s cure, not dry. Varnish manufacturers will tell you that varnish dries in twenty-four hours. But that is not the same as curing.

Gold leaf has a nasty tendency to stick to anything. But especially uncured varnish. I frequently allow a week or more for the varnish to cure; move on to another project, and come back later to apply gold leaf.

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Acorns to Oaks*

We all want to be instant experts. One of my sensei describes this in terms of the training montages that are standard fare in martial arts movies; the neophyte progresses from clumsy beginner to skilled pro in thirty seconds of cinematic snapshots. The rest of us suffer from dissatisfaction and disappointment from being less than optimal for much longer.
Not every time, but more frequently than I’d like, I get confronted with the unique. And, all of a sudden I am a neophyte once more. Incorporating new materials, using new types of paints, complex constructions, and most especially very small parts that need fabrication all create confrontations with the problematic.

When I was doing banners, quarter boards, transoms, and the odd eagle, the problems were mostly mechanical – design layout, curvature to fit, and calculating shadows in carved lettering.

Boat and ship portraits offer many more issues. I am presenting a practice piece of the very first boat portrait I ever did. Remember, practice pieces are exactly like the rough sketches you do of a subject before you paint – the practice is to work out the approach, shapes, and rendering before you start the actual work. Being that carving is subtractive, this saves you from ruining expensive wood and wasting time.

practice carving of a 19 foot Eltro for a mast hoop portrait

Over the years, I’ve done many portraits. I’ve borrowed techniques from model makers, painters, and illustrators. I’ve also had to develop some tricks of my own. The single most important thing will seem trite: challenge is what differentiates those who are growing from those who are standing still intellectually and as artists.

Principal carving is complete, finishing the coaming and adding some details are all that's left before fitting into the hoop
Principal carving is complete, finishing the coaming and adding some details are all that’s left before fitting into the hoop.

There are about two years between my first practice piece and my rendering of a cat boat for a mast hoop portrait. Principal carving is complete, finishing the coaming and adding some details are all that’s left before fitting into the hoop.

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Easy Pieces

I admit that the sort of non complex carving that happens when I carve a small bowl is pretty alluring. No antsy detail. No pattern that needs to be followed. Just follow the will of the wood.

today I put up a new page on the site for hand carved bowls, but thought that I’d spend a bit of time taking about my favorites . I am kind of hoping that these do not sell at next weeks show. I’ve made the mistake of getting attached to them.

Only a few inches around, the banding on the sides and interior, and the rough lip make this one a favorite just to hold and look at. Made from a piece of cherry firewood.

This second one was also from firewood. I love the subtle grain pattern and the rough lip.

This third bowl was from a slightly larger piece of cherry firewood. I had enough wood to form a bit of a handle. I went experimental and charred the interior with a torch. Before finishing you scrape off most to the char, leaving just blackened wood. There are slight defects in the wood that in my mind make the piece even more interesting.

I’ve done a number of others, and like them, but these are my favorites.

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New and Old

We can easily get lost in the weeds talking about tradition in crafts. It’s just hard to avoid observing that technology casts long shadows when you make something and call it traditional. The majority of shops that work with wood use bandsaws, table saws, and jointers. These tools have been around long enough not to ignite a vendetta among purists looking for “traditionally crafted goods.” But the technological landscape is always changing for the craftsperson.
Recently I have been nosing about on the borders. A few years ago, a series of eye surgeries compromised my ability to do certain types of woodcarving, mostly lettering. After surgery, I began to explore what I could and couldn’t conveniently do. The vision changes prompted the carving shop’s move from the old basement workshop into the greenhouse – I needed lots of light. Last year I also began to play around incorporating laser engraving and cutting as an adjunct to my carving.
Some things worked well, and others fell flat. Frankly, it’s all a work in progress. The small sign shown above is one of the projects that worked. Some of the others wound up feeding the woodstove.
Is it traditional? Well, was it traditional when craftspeople and artists began using acrylic paints or using computers to assist them in design?

Years ago, when I worked as an anthropologist, I knew a woman who crafted the most incredible Ukrainian Easter eggs. One afternoon over coffee Elizabeth introduced me to the history of technological innovation in the world of decorated Easter eggs. Over the centuries, dies and methods of preparation changed. But the community accepted the eggs because of the continuity of design and meaning in the community.
Back in the ’80’s colleagues were musing about Cambodian kite makers shifting from traditional fabrics used in Cambodia to the ripstop nylon available to them here in the United States. The maker of traditional Cambodian dance costumes received mention also. One of them had adopted the hot glue gun and factory-made jewelry findings to construct elaborate headdresses and other costume bits. They looked like the old style, but the components and techniques had evolved.

On one project I worked on years ago with boatbuilders, I asked builders what they thought was the central concept that defined the traditional boat. I had expected them to talk about materials, construction techniques, and design. I wasn’t disappointed because they all mentioned those things to one degree or another, but as a group, they said the value placed on the boat by the community that used them was central. One well-known figure I interviewed ( Lance Lee) suggested the term “cherish” as the central concept – the boats were cherished and valued by the community. It was the community of users that made something traditional.

The laser engraver that sits in the basement, and my visual handicap, got me thinking about these things. The concept of craft, especially when labeled traditional, has some minefields laid in it for the artisan. Look beyond technology to intent, the community’s acceptance of the product, and the continuation of design tradition. Sometimes we might be daunted by what we see, but the first carver who moved from a stone or bone tipped tool to one of metal started us on the moving process of technology in arts and craft.

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New York Pilot Boat 5

This chest was not in stock long enough for me to do a proper set of photos. It sold at it’s first appearance at the Maine Boatbuilder’s Show to a pair of Boston Harbor pilots who were going to give it as a retirement gift to a colleague. The chest itself was of fairly common pine with teak keys for strength and decorative effect.
The top though, that’s some pine of a different pedigree. The pine tree was felled by the great hurricane of 1938. At the time it came down, it had been the tallest tree in the town of Shirley, Massachusetts. Very probably old growth, the entire top was just a segment of the plank I purchased from the retired dairy farmer, who, in true Yankee fashion, refused to let such a good tree go to waste and made it into planks.


The pilot boat itself was pilot number 5 from New York Harbor. Pilot boats had to be extremely fast and able, and this design shows a flexible sail plan and sweet lines. Somewhere I have a slew of pilot boat designs but have not had an opportunity to carve another. Beautiful boats like this are hard to resist.

for a more recent look into New York Harbor pilotage take a look at Tugsters post of a pilot boat mothership: https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/72558/posts/2868136611

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Wood

Wood occupies a central part of our lives. We love our cherry spoons, Mahogany cabinets, and teak deck chairs. As consumers, there is much that you don’t know about your favorite woods.

Smell:

Ash has a sweetish odor, that is uniquely distinctive when you saw it or burn it. Fresh red birch has a scent that takes you back to the best root beers you’ve ever had. Cherry bark smells like tasty cough syrup. And oak has an earthy odor to it. If you work with fresh-cut timber, these are some of the sensations that the tree shares with you, and which the uninitiated remain unaware.

Color:

Love the look of mahogany, the beautiful color of cherry, or walnut? The tree didn’t add them for you. Trees live in a highly competitive environment where organisms are always attacking the tree, looking for a meal. To deter the attacks, trees deposit chemicals into their wood that inhibit insects, bacteria, and fungi. After we cut the timber, those chemicals give us the coloration and some of the wood’s durability.

Toxicity:

Some woods are toxic to us. A wood called Pink Ivory is lovely to look at but is dangerous because of the chemicals in the wood. In use, it needs sealing before it’s safe for us to use. 

Woodworkers need to be especially aware that the dust caused by sanding some species is irritating. Mahogany and teak fall into that category. Not everyone is sensitive, but wearing protective gear is an excellent way of avoiding dermatitis or respiratory issues.

Food Safety:

Normally most of what I’ve mentioned is not too important to the average consumer. There is one area to aware of, and that is treen. Treen ( derived from the word tree) are objects like spoons, spatulas, bowls, and the like. Being that we handle food with them, the potential toxicity should be considered. In North America, woods normally considered food safe are woods like maple, fruitwoods (cherry, plum, pear, and apple) birch, and poplar. I’ve used ash for cutting boards, but not for spoons because it has alternating summer and winter woods ( ring porosity) and might absorb odors and flavors when immersed. Oak, while not toxic, is ring-porous, and can impart it’s earthy taste to foods, so I do not use it.

You might notice that I have not included walnut on my list. I am rather certain that it is food safe, but I rarely use it because there are a good number of people with walnut allergies.

Spalted wood is wood with the patterns of decay caused by fungus visible on the wood. It’s beautiful to look at, but there is a significant debate as to whether or not it is food safe. I do not work with it, in part, because there is a respiratory risk to the woodworker from the spores of the fungus. Yes, many woodworkers claim that the spores can be killed by microwaving or heating the wood. It’s just not a risk I take.

Exotic woods. I stay away from them. For many, there are question marks regarding their food safety, and being that I used to sell commercially, I had product liability to worry about.

If you have questions about any of this, write me, and I’ll try to formulate an intelligent response.

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Favorites

My father’s favorite ship was the S.S. President Tyler. He sailed aboard it whenever possible from his first voyage around 1932 till he came ashore in 1946, the year I was born. Several World and Asian cruises made him a genuine China Sailor.
Sailors, merchant or naval, can have deep relationships with their ships. Call it loyalty, affection, longing, or call it what it really can be – romance. I know, I have an ache for a certain ketch I’ll never see again. Women are known to jealous of ships and boats. My first mother in law was jealous of the Cap’ns Psyche. For the sake of peace, she hid it well. My mother was not so diplomatic about my father’s love of the sea, and “that ship.” She had been a sea widow throughout their marriage and two pregnancies. Like many sea widow’s, there came a time when the husband was expected to “swallow the anchor.” More than a few arguments ended with my father threatening to go to the hiring hall and “look for a ship.”
So growing up, the Tyler was a sensitive issue. We’d regularly drive along the Hudson River to where the reserve fleet was anchored. He was looking for the Tyler. My mother was never on any of these excursions.

I had seen my father’s pictures onboard the Tyler, But I had never seen a photo of the ship itself. My mother was famous for editing her life, so it’s more than likely that she disposed of those photos when she threw out dad’s cruise scrapbooks. For her, those were not good times.

Many years later, I was teaching marine carving at the WoodenBoat School in Maine. Teaching at WoodenBoat is not just an opportunity to learn. It’s an opportunity to grow as a person through the freindhips formed with the individuals you meet there. One year one of my students was a former Master Mariner who worked for the American Bureau of Shipping. We talked about ships one night, and I told him all that I knew of the Tyler and my father’s affection for the ship. I mentioned that I’d love to carve a portrait of the Tyler but could not find enough data to start the project. I thought no more about the conversation, and at the end of the course, said goodbye to my students and returned to Massachusetts.

About three weeks later, a large envelope arrived from the ABS (American Bureau of Shipping). In it was were copies of plans and articles relating to the class of vessel to which the Tyler had belonged; enough to start the portrait. My student had searched the ABS library for the documentation that I needed.

The Tyler was my first large portrait. I can now look at it and see a dozen things that I would and could do differently with twenty years of experience carving portraits. But when you finish a project it’s best to move on, or you’ll never finish.

It sails on my wall with a cherry ocean and sky heading east from Japan or China towards Los Angelos. I think my father is pleased that his ship is restored to an essential place in our lives, through the unexpected kindness of a fellow seaman.

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Eagle Eyes

While teaching, I always like to decorate the workshop with carving examples for students to use as a reference. Week-long excursions to teach away from home mean emptying the house of many of my carvings. But samples in three dimensions often are better than pictures or demonstration, and the extra work was worth it.
During one summer course, A student was working on an eagle and suddenly stopped, got up, and went over to an eagle billet head. He picked it up and turned the head away from him. Noticing me watching, he shrugged his shoulders and said: “it was watching me.”
Smiling, I pointed out that he was perfecting the eagle’s body plan and feathers without working on the head, most notably the eye. He asked me why it mattered, and I told him that it was essential to fair the contours of the head and neck into the body, so the eagle looked all of one piece when finished. The head is temporarily attached to the body with a screw while you carve the neck fair to the body.
” But why was it watching me?”
Well, I explained, years ago, while I was first carving eagles, a talented carver from Boothbay Harbor advised me to always start the head before detailing and finish the eye first. There was a practical reason for this. The eye was a delicate piece of work, and if not done right could ruin the whole birdie. He then added that he had been taught to do the eye first so the eagle could oversee the carving’s remainder. ” As I was taught, so am I teaching you.” I then turned the eagle about so it’s beady eyes were on the student. ” Being that you haven’t done the eye first, this birdie’s cousin in watching you.” I can be a first-class pain sometimes.

I carved the eyes on that particular eagle with a “tunnel” eye effect. With that manner of carving, you could get the impression that the eye watches you and moves with you. To someone easily spooked, like my student, it could be an unpleasant sensation.
There are several ways to carve eagle eyes for traditional marine eagles. Please note that if you carve more realistic styles, these will not appeal to you. I’m a nineteenth-century carver stuck in the twenty-first century. Be all modern if you like. Another ships carver reminded me that most people do not get close eough to smell the eagle; all these things in full size are meant to be viewed from a distance. Here are some examples of eyes:

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Twentyone

“The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The problem with imagination is that it’s boundless. On the wall is a poster telling you that you can do it if you can imagine it. Don’t take it too literally.

Aspirations aside, there are some things only possible with loads of tricks, like telling fortunes. My friend Bill had picked up some tricks of the psychic trade from working with a con artist we knew as John. Bill had a natural talent for reading people, and with the card and vocal tricks he had picked up from John, he was soon a favorite among the weekend influx of suburban kids that regularly hit the Folkie Palace. 

From fortune-telling with the kids to doing it at the Harvard Gardens for beer was a natural progression. “Imagine.” he told me- “I’m doing well while doing good.” At first, he restricted himself to doing readings for friends, but as he grew more confident, he branched out. Lovelorn young ladies came to be a specialty. One attractive woman decided that she wanted Bill’s services exclusively. He demurred politely. She grew insistent. He explained that he was married. She slapped him and walked out.

Not too much later in walked police Sargent Cappucci with the young woman behind him. We all stood up to give Bill the needed cover to run out past the men’s room and the back door into the alleyway. Knowing that Bill and I were best friends, I got collared. “Tell your little buddy that I ‘m looking for him. Playing with the affections of my niece is something I won’t tolerate.” He shoved me into the booth, and away they walked. Him fuming her crying softly. “His niece.” Said the Teahead of the August Moon. ” Sweet. Bill can always find some way to get us into trouble.”

For the next couple of weeks, we were not in good favor with the residents of Grove Street. It seemed that the entire street attracted more casual police attention than usual. Squad cars were cruising by. Officers were poking around. It curtailed summer parties and other activities. It became common knowledge that we were the cause of this attention. As a group, and as individuals, we got uninvited from everything happening in the neighborhood. People avoided sitting near us in the Harvard Gardens. 

Bill suffered from none of this. He had departed for Baltimore right after the trouble at the Gardens.

As is often the case, we don’t learn from our mistakes unless we suffer from their consequences. In this incident, only Bill’s friends have. So it came as no surprise that no one at the Folkie Palace was willing to contribute to paying the fine to get Bill out of jail in Baltimore.

He had been cutting into the action of the”legitimate” psychics in Downtown Baltimore, and they had tipped off the police. I hitched down, solicited as many of our friends as possible, and got him out.

He was a repentant, Bill. a Bill who promised never to tell a fortune again. Besides, while in the joint, he’d met this great guy who’d taught him how to count cards in Blackjack.

” Wes, have you ever been to Vegas?”

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Saps Running!

For John’s Cellpic Sunday, Mach 1, 2026

I just shot this about a half an hour ago. There is that magical drip…drip…drip of maple sap into the bucket that will eventually be boiled into syrup. To an extent this is the early harbinger of spring. The first bucket will eventually be joined by others through my tiny “sugar bush.” I only produce three or so gallons for family use, but the trapping, boiling, and bottling is a big part of putting a close to winter and a start to spring.

Just be careful with the icy trails in the woods when you bring the buckets in for boiling!

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All At Sea

Daily writing prompt
Do you believe in fate/destiny?
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Destiny, Fate? The guiding hand? Chance, chaos, and doing your own thing. It’s complicated for sailors. Two quotations will help me illustrate:

Blackbeard felt this way about fate and destiny: “It is a blessing for a man to have a hand in determining his own fate.”

“He that will learn to pray, let him go to sea.” ~ George Herbert

Blackbeard had it in one. We have a hand in our own fate, but there is much that is beyond our control. Our skills can help us maneuver out of a corner, but sometimes it won’t be enough. This personally proved true for him.

George Herbert also knew what he was talking about. Set out for a sail on a sunny day that turns to a storm, and you’ll see how fast you can move from being in control to praying for salvation.

Out of Control

The skills you learned sailing in milder circumstances may not save you when the wind piles you against a lee shore and snaps the main sheet out of your hand. The first utterance out of your mouth is, “Dear sweet Lord…” To explain, I had the helm ( in charge of the rudder and main sail on a sailboat) when a sudden squall came up. A burst of wind whipped the main sheet ( the line used to control the sail) out of my hand, and the line and boom whipped out of my reach.

All of a sudden, I was sailing towards a rocky point rather than parallel to it. I was suddenly thrown from being in control to being out of control. How did I escape? The sea calmed for a bit, I handed the rudder to another sailor, and I climbed onto the rail and snagged the main sheet when it snapped towards me. If that had failed, I’d have attempted to lower the sail and control a mass of wind-tossed sail. The most perilous part was balancing while getting back into the boat, while the sea danced around me.

So, sailors love to exchange little stories like the one above. They are not only amusing, afterward, but also instructive. My father told a grisly tale of surviving the sinking of a tanker in the Second World War. Not only was it a captivating tale, but it also offered practical advice on survival. I guess he assumed that I’d go to see eventually.

A lot of these stories are punctuated with nods to deity, fate, fortune, and destiny. If you are down in the engine room during a sinking, escape may be a matter not under your personal control.

Control

Among my possessions is a small volume of the New Testament carried by my father on voyages during the War. He was a Christmas and Easter sort of Christian. But like many sailors, he was neither agnostic nor atheist at sea. I received my appreciation for preparedness from my seaman father. Sloppy and unprepared sailors have limited life prospects. Sailors also have an appreciation for how uncontrolled events may roll out in an emergency.

Ritual is a way in which sailors have historically attempted to influence what they truly know is uncontrollable. Christening ships, precious coins under mast steps, not sailing on Fridays, no whistling on deck ( you’ll whistle up a storm), no sky pilots (priests and ministers), and many other things labeled by the flatlanders as superstition.

In this day of multimedia presentations, you can vicariously thrill to a leaping deck under your feet. But the actual experience is beyond that. One time I was sent forward during an emergency on board, and the only way forward was by an outside companionway. Not bad, you say? Try it in the middle of a hurricane. Slipping and sliding, fearing that you’ll be washed overboard? not reproducible. Getting to the end of the companionway, I ducked in and secured the entryway. I said a brief prayer for my continued health and made as if nothing had happened at all. Nice and calm by the time I got to my duty station. Right!

Believe in destiny and fate. I don’t think I’d have been much of a sailor unless I did.

Now on to practical matters. Cap’n Lou will personally deep-six you if you come aboard with bananas! Got that?

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Last on the Card, February 2026

We don’t know if this is Dudley or Deidre, but two doves show up at what has been spilled from the feeders almost every day. First, it was Dudley, but recently he has brought along Deidre for an intimate dining experience at our exclusive venue. Max regularly sweeps the area to ensure that the lowlife squirrels do not interfere with the guests! Bunny rabbits are allowed in after hours only.

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Smooth Move!

Throw ’em out the window!!!

A blogger put out a prompt today for one hundred words on “defenestration.” I thought about it, and could think of no way I could reduce the thoughts into a single hundred words. Of course my immediate mental wanderings directed me to Prague and it’s numerous window tossing extravaganzas. Some of those resulted in regime change, and some to long drawn out wars that consumed Europe. I think that in only one of those instances the tossed survived the drop from the third floor window. Evidentlly they fell into a dung heap piled up against the building. An odiferous escape from death. Relying only on memory, a week thing, some of the results were the Thiry Years Wars, a Papal “Crusade”, and many millions of deaths. and I’m sure I’m missing two or so wars, revolutions and lots of mayhem in there.

Hacktivists

In true Stream of Consciousness style, the defenestrations linked up to some random web search from last night. Looking for something simple and specific, the search led me far afield, and I wound up watching a documentary on the Hacktivist group Anonymous. They were young, lots around sixteen, idealistic, and pissed off with the “Machine.”

So, of course, they tried to take it down. They made a pretty good start until a three-letter agency “turned” a member with a deal he couldn’t afford to turn down. That started the roll-up of the organization, prison terms, and a rude awakening to adult life.

Revolutionaries

While no one in the materials I watched mentioned it, the old rubric about three keeping a secret if two are dead, it had a sort of unstated presence in the documentary. But I had heard another version of it way back in the sixties. I am not now, nor ever have been, a revolutionary. But I hung out with some rather far to the left dudes and dudettes in the day. In Baltimore, Maryland, I had friends who hung out at Mr.Lee’s New Era Bookstore. The New Era was famous for its assortment of leftist materials of all types.

One day, I was listening to a group discussing how to avoid the infiltration of the radical group they belonged to. One piped up with this, ” In any secret organization, there are two who can keep the secrets, two who can follow orders, one who is an informant, and one who is the secret police.” He ascribed this to pre-Stalinist Russian wisdom. They then all fell to methods of ferreting out the informant and feeding the secret police believable disinformation.

I think it was this group that thought up the plan to start offering coffee to the FBI agents who watched the store. During the winter, only a truly dedicated man could turn down a hot coffee in a storm. The idea wasn’t to eventually “turn” the agent, but to make him untrusted and reassigned. It was amazing how well this strategy worked.

Smooth Moves

This group accepted as a sort of gospel that if they were important enough and disruptive, they’d have an informer and an agent. They didn’t seem to despair over this; just accepted it. Jared, one of the members pointrd out that many successful revolutionary groups worked with these dynamics. The difference between failed groups and successful groups was that the successful ones managed the potential damage, and the ones that were hopelessly compromised failed to.

Somewhere on my third cup of coffee, I recalled that final bit and realized that, in Jared’s terms, Anonymous was a failed effort. They had a few smooth moves, but were deficient in any organizational way. As I sipped, I realized that the implication was that somewhere out there are the smart ones; they not only have the smooth moves, but an effective way of policing their organization.

Too Much Coffee?

Well, that’s the Stream of my Consciousness for this Saturday…maybe I should limit the coffee intake to two cups?

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The Folkie Apocalypse

Daily writing prompt
Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to.
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OKAY, This is your alert! He’s so off on a Greenwich Village roll again! You Have Been Warned.

I sat down to watch the movie ” A Mighty Wind” with some trepidation. Within moments, I was groaning at the portrayals of people who were almost like the folkies I had known. The movie cut, in a humorous way, just a little too close to the bone. The preoccupations of the performers opened to public view. The jealousies and innuendos were all there. We took it so seriously, and the movie exposed how mundane we were.

It was tough to watch because I know friends who either never picked up a guitar again after their last gig or those who practiced endlessly for a gig that will never come. Think of it; thousands of folkies, male and female, practicing in their basements, waiting for the Folkie Apocalypse to come. Do you think I’m joking? We may be getting old, but Folk Music is a powerful drug. When it takes hold of you, it doesn’t let go.

Flashbacks

I have not been able to watch the movie ” Inside Llewyn Davis.” Just watching the trailer gave me bad flashbacks. Don’t get me wrong. I loved Greenwich Village, and I loved my life there. I’m not sure that, in a way, I’ll ever get over it. But, to get shoved back inside it again. No. Much too much crazy stupidity. But oh for the beautiful afternoons, evenings, nights, and entire weeks of playing that music.

I say beautiful. But we lived in run-down fleabag hotels, and cheap rentals that you shared with all manner of critters. And after parties, the empties seemed to roll by themselves across the floors. You might need a glossary to decode the version of hipster English we spoke. It blended idioms from jazz, blues, the Bohemians, Eastern Europe, and just low-down New York City street argot.

About a year ago, they convened a symposium on the Folk Revival in a town near me. I stayed away from it. It focused on big names and their “significant” contributions.” Horse shit. The real contributions that were significant were made in the little coffeehouses. And the real contributors were the people who never got acknowledged in the “East Village Other, “Variety, or the Times. The real deal happened at the Rienzi, Kettle of Fish, or at four AM in that cafeteria on Sixth Avenue.

Onward

Where they dispersed to is unknown. No trips to the coast for record deals, no late lamented recognition by friends who made it. They were young girls with guitars, an unlikely Black and very conservative Jewish harmonica player, an offbeat Columbia philosophy professor making moves as a beat poet, and uptown hipsters looking for a new world.

No, they did not take the last train out to the coast. Every once in a while a few stumble together in a sort of conclave. The sparks flash, and the grandkids refer to dictionaries, glossaries, books like The Mayor of MacDougal Street, movies like A Mighty Wind, or Inside Llewyn Davis for clues to meanings. Then they are shuffled off to the assisted living they wandered from. You know the one with a sign saying “a memory care community.”

Memories. How appropriate. As that refugee philosophy professor cum beat poet, Mother Hibbard, said, “Be aware, traveler, you’ll never pass this way again.” 

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Mid-Watch

A Flashback Friday Presentation from February 27, 2021

You get a sort of meager slumber. Night-Ops rumbling above, General Quarters can sound any time; and up you’d rise to your assigned station. You don’t bother shucking off your shoes; you might not have time to put them back on. That was Operational Readiness Inspection. Tht was life in the Navy.


Given that as a background, you’d think that a quiet anchor watch in a friendly harbor would be a piece of cake. Civilian life!

Not so when the anchor, solo, is holding loosely on shingle, and the skipper and the rest of the crew have flexible ideas of what constitutes a watch. Four hours, you’d say (except for the two dogged watches). Perhaps if you’re more familiar with bells, it should be eight bells ( two bells in each hour). These days, you might pull out a phone or tablet and spend time listening to music. Not so then; things that played music did not fit in a pocket unless they were a harmonica.

Why, Dear Lord, Why?


Inevitably, your mind wandered to things best left unexamined. Why did I agree to come on this stupid cruise knowing that I’d catch the mid-watch? Then the sound of oars and loud voices came to me over the water. “Hey. Pipe down. Everybody’s asleep…except for the anchor watch.” “Ahoy, Psyche! Is that young Westerly? Do you want a bottle? We have one more drop, and we’ll be chumming the fishies!” I thought this one over before answering quickly. ” It’s Wes, and I assume that you’re the crew that shut down the Twin Dolphins tonight.” The reply- ” We are. So, you want the bottle?” I jumped into the skiff, let off the painter, and rowed out to meet them.


A companionable two hours of conversation and sipping killed off the balance of the watch. The crew that shut down the Twin Dolphins rowed back to their schooner and me to the ketch.
As I was climbing on board, a groggy Cap’n emerged on deck. ” I thought I heard voices…is that rum I smell?” My reply: “Sure is Cap’n. In the middle of the mid-watch, I rowed out to meet a bunch of rum-toting drunks. We drank all their rum, and only now am I reporting back for duty.”


He blearily looked at me. If he weren’t just fresh from his bunk, he’d have pulled out his pipe and done his little routine of filling it, lighting it, puffing on it, and then pointing the stem at me. Being it was 4:30 in the morning, he just grumbled, ” the mid-watch can do strange things to the mind, but providing rum doesn’t count as one of them.” Before he noticed, I quickly deep-sixed the empty pint of rum over the side.

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I’M OK With Me

Daily writing prompt
If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?
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I have no desire to escape into some sort of alter ego, even for a day. It’s not that I consider myself perfect, but I’ve reached a sort of agreeable truce with who I am. And I’m pretty pleased and satisfied with him – foibles not excluded. I’ve paid attention to the pulse of my life, and understand that almost anyone else would feel alien.

This is not some sort of smug way of petting myself on the back. As a matter of fact, I can do a great job of kicking myself for faults. It’s just that deficiencies and all, I’m OK with myself. If someone else occupied my shoes for a day, they might not be.

Faullts

I can be really irritating. Last year, when I was ill with some odd virus, I put an entire raised bed in the garden out of place. While I’m not into creating formal symmetry in the garden, not twisting into odd corners to provide irrigation to the beds is preferable to the current layout. Everyone has heard me kvetch about emptying the bed, relocation, and refilling. I now get looks from family members when I start in on this

I’m pretty sure that whoever’s shoes you might want to step into has some similar irritating quirk that was not in the press release or short bio.

Who Not To Be?

We might spend time more profitably considering who we would not want to be. Come on, some politicians come to mind, some tycoon who was an Epstein affiliate? Rather than try to escape your own set of circumstances, be appreciative that you are not an ICE agent, pedophile, grifting politician, or that cousin you can’t stand.

This is not an idle exercise. Empathy allows us to place ourselves in another’s shoes, understand their position, and sympathize with them. People like those I’ve mentioned share the same range of emotion and behavioral characteristics as the rest of us. But somewhere they went off the rails, did awful things, damaged people’s lives, and perhaps enriched their own in perverted ways.

Rather than simply condemning them out of hand, we should appreciate the fact that their motives were distortions of the norm, and under other circumstances, it might be us doing those things. Consider, if you will, why you would not. And be thankful that you are you. Not them.

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Are You Kidding?

Huh? Are you kidding me? Want to go out in this frozen junk? Who do you think I am? The Dog? Open that door right away! I want to go back to my rocking chair by the stove!

DO YOU HEAR ME!!!!!!!!!

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The Very Meaning of Custom

Daily writing prompt
Describe the most ambitious DIY project you’ve ever taken on.
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Most often, nothing is available prefabricated when I do a portrait of a ship or boat. The same is true of an eagle or other project. The essence of “custom” is that you are doing it because someone wants it, and it is not available from a commercial source. So you have to make it all by hand. DIY? I guess you could call it that. Here are some ship and boat portrait examples:

A wooden artwork depicting a ship, featuring a detailed design in white and black against a polished wood background.
A decorative wooden wall art piece featuring a ship made from inlaid materials, displayed against a green background.
A carved wooden wall art piece depicting a sailing ship with two sails, mounted in a black frame, against a brown background with blue water at the bottom.

None of these has any commercial parts, and most of the ships I carve have no plans. With luck, I find published drawings online or a good photo. Marine carving is the ultimate in DIY.

Eagles and Sundry

Intricate wooden carving of an eagle with outstretched wings and detailed feathers.

Eagles, banners, and other things are similar. But here you do get fortunate in finding good drawings or published patterns that you then have to resize, redraw, and interpret for carving. Once again, it’s not like building a kit. The eagle from the first USS Pennsylvania was an interesting case. All I had was a photo I took at the Mystic Seaport. From that, I made a pattern I used for carving. I was interested in how my master’s, Back In The Day, modified patterns to derive different versions of eagles. I modified the pattern for a dozen eagles to see what the variations yielded.

A workshop wall displaying various wooden carvings and tools, including shaped wooden pieces and hand tools.
Pattern’s hanging in my shop

Having worked in my friend’s boatyard, where patterns hung from the rafters, informed me how to do this. Patterns get reused. Want a Payson’s Cove 25, but at 30 feet with a bit more beam and a higher sheer line? We modify a pattern with the information, and sometimes create a new one. Who knows? Someone else might want one if the design change is popular. I am reasonably sure that this was how the old timers did it. If it was goodenough for them, it works for me.

Clients sometimes have specific themes and needs; you do what you can to satisfy them:

Wooden sign featuring 'JMC Charolais' in gold letters, with a carved image of a white cow on a green and blue background, located in Georgetown, MA.

Despite a shop full of gear and tools, the essentials of the trade are pretty much the same as would have been found in a seventeenth-century shop – gouges, chisels, planes, and shaves. Some things do not change

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One Liner Wednesday – February 25

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.

Herman Melville

Louis N. Carreras, Woodcarver

Authentic Nautical Accessories, and Custom Furnishings

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