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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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Things Sister Marguerite Never Knew!

Daily writing prompt
When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?
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It’s not so much what I wanted to be at five, but it was the developmental rush between say five and ten. I went from being five and on top of the world on my red scooter, to being six to ten and gradually becoming a dedicated anti-authoritarian. Baby steps?

Nope. Sister Marguerite De Sade and her Sisters of Perpetual Pain. You know. Old fashioned Parochial school – spare the rod and spoil the child. Except I wasn’t bashful about retaliatory strikes. The dear sister’s ankles bore many scars from my kicks. Hit me, and get kicked! Eventually, I was exiled to public school. It was the first time I was called incorrigible.

Boss?

Those early events had a lasting effect on me and set me on a path of anti-authoritarian behavior and belief. But it not only had an effect on how I behaved towards authority, but it also affected how I behaved when I eventually became a boss, led team and community efforts. I was the cheerleader-type boss, trying for successful team efforts. I really was disgusted by the thought that now I had power, and it was my “turn” to make people miserable. Yuck! That didn’t mean that I couldn’t enforce discipline when needed, but it did mean that I preferred persuasion to force. Besides, as an anthropologist working on community projects, Sister Marguerite’s tactics would have landed me in jail!

About ninety-five percent of the time, I could make my approach work, persuade, lead by example, and then, if needed, use the force of the community to bring dissident elements in line. Well, you say what about the remaining five percent? OK, here we go. Not everyone is a team player, wants to get along, work hard, and some even like being disruptive and destructive. To them, encroaching on another person’s personal space or efforts is fun.

Eventually, you happen on someone like that. I’ve found that most times, the individual has a past. It’s not only you he, or she, irritates – it’s the rest of the group as well. That’s where your team and community-building efforts pay off. The community is interested in the success of the effort or program. Sometimes I was able to tap the team for ways to get effort out of the dissected. In one case, he was a lifelong member of the community, and suggestions were made to me about what duties he’d be best at and would like.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The sad thing about leadership is that you can’t always get results with the disaffected through reasonable behavior, and allowing them to run rampant can weaken your efforts for a successful project. You can’t be bashful about enforcing your authority. But you also can’t be an undisciminating ashole about how you enforce it either.

When I worked at UPS, I had a senior Teamster who did good work, but would slack off if I wasn’t watching. He’d also toss packages around. That was an issue, and I had to warn him about this daily.

He’d scream and yell, dance, sing odd songs, and curse at me after I’d warned him. I adopted an irritating habit of smiling widely at him when he did this little routine. He grew infuriated one day and threw a package at me. The physical assault got him fired. After apologies and assurances of good behavior, the union was able to get him his job back. But I now had power over him, a repetition, or further discipline issues could complicate his job, and security at UPS. I made it clear to him when he returned to our team that the only thing I expected from him was to do his job. He didn’t like me, but he now respected me if only because he knew I could disrupt his life worse than he could mine.

I had very good relationships with the other Teamsters on my team. They knew I had their back, respected them, valued them as individuals, and would support them in any way possible.

Things Sister Marguerite Never Knew

So, getting back to Sister Marguerite and the Sisters of Perpetual Pain. What they didn’t know about people and leadership could fill an encyclopedia. Rather than start with ultimate sanctions, you learn a little leadership. I’m not so egotistical as to think that my style is the best or only style. But a teacher should invest some time in developing a leadership style that doesn’t start with coercion and end with violence.

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What you don’t know about – Pine

Pine gets a bad rap. When people are selecting wood for a project inside the home, it’s frequently the ” move along: choice, as in move along to oak, maple, or birch. That’s not necessarily the best choice aesthetically, functionally, or price-wise. A little bit of exploration on pine might be useful. In this post, I’m going to explore it from a woodcarver’s perspective.

A Bit of History

A professional carver who gives internet lessons on carving commented online, a few years ago, to a student that pine was not a suitable wood for carving, get some good basswood was the advice. I laughed at this. Pine was the go-to wood for several generations of New England ship carvers, and the lines of many a schooner hull were carved first in our regional white pine, not to mention figureheads and many of the achievements of John Haley Bellamy. Pine is terrific to carve is you are mindful of its character and use sharp tools.

Here is a pine paradox: southern yellow pine can be harder than many hardwoods, and was once widely used for pattern making and shipbuilding. In the ’70’s I was gifted with a section of southern yellow pine that had been a beam in an old factory. Cutting it up into carvable pieces was challenging. In that case, the sample was old-growth cut in the 1890s.

Regional variation, the environment in which the tree grew, how the sawyer cut it ( quarter sawn or plain), how fast it grew, how it was seasoned, and other factors all contribute to suitability for carving. For example, the transom eagle on the USS Constitution is of ponderosa pine. These days, ponderosa is better known for its use as structural wood and not for its use in carving. In 1910, the old-growth ponderosa selected by a Philadelphia shipyard carver was not exceptional. The ponderosa chosen was sturdy, hard for a “softwood,” and tight-grained. Until the Constitution maintenance shop carpenter told me about the carving as he worked on it, I’d never have thought to select ponderosa for a project.

This Transom eagle on the USS Constitution was carved in 1901 from Ponderosa pine. At some point it was modified to allow a line through the lower section of the carving.

Another pine that you might be interested in trying is western sugar pine. It has a clean tight grain and a distinctive sweet odor. You may need to shop around for this, but won’t be disappointed in the real deal. I carved this little eagle out of sugar pine and loved the experience.

Technique

A few words of caution on technique while using pine: it can seem like a good idea to try to “hog out” wood fast with a large gouge and a mallet. If you are hollowing the wings of an eagle for depth and shape, this can be a temptation. In fast grown pine, this is a mistake. Your gouge will tend to dig into the grain, and if you attempt to wedge it out, the grain will tear out deeply, leaving you with a rough and deep tear in the wood. Be gentle. Remember going fast is not always going to get you there sooner.
Another issue can be cuts that run on a bit further than intended. The answer to this is less force and more finesse on the cuts, If you are using a mallet switch to a lighter one or use your palm. Some years ago, I took a knot of elm from the firewood pile and fashioned it into a palm mallet. The palm mallet protects my hand from impacts while allowing me to get a bit more force into a cut.

Pine is a worthwhile wood for carving: It’s readily available in a variety of species; many times, it will be the economical choice of wood, and used properly with sharp tools can yield a rewarding carving experience.

Daily writing prompt
What’s something most people don’t understand?
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Whizzz, Whrrrrr, Click!

Daily writing prompt
How has technology changed your job?
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Sorry, I’m not going down any rabbit holes for mostly egregious discussions about how technology is screwing with my job ( I’m sorry, Lou. I can’t do that anymore…turn on the AI dehumanizer first…). No, I was thinking about summer relaxation! With the gardening season starting I was looking for things that would do the heavy lifting in the garden while I enjoyed a nice iced tea on a summer afternoon. It didn’t work out as well as I planned.

So let’s see… There were the automatic weed burners and weed hackers. Some company sent me an ad for. But on exploration, I found out that it would probably eliminate every wildflower in the garden because it recognized it as a weed. That’s out! Then there was an automatic garden bug killer. But it had a tendency to eliminate beneficial insects too. Nope.

After exploring those options, I was glum. Surely there was something that would ease the burden of work in the garden? Then I found an AI device to water the garden while keeping the pesky squirrels and rabbits from my spinach and lettuce. I hooked it up to the computer, connected the Bluetooth, and away it went. About an hour in, there was not a squirrel, mouse, rabbit, or chipmunk to be seen. On my inspection tour, I found all the raised beds well watered. Then I noticed the whirring sounds. The nozzles on the system whirred, swivaled, and then targeted me. I found myself running for the gate as high-pressure streams of water sought me out.

After I stopped dripping, I went to the office and attempted to disconnect the system, but it wouldn’t let me in. I had to call the service number, be issued a one-time passcode, and key that in. That did it. It wasn’t pretty, but I ripped every bit of that darned system out. At last, my garden was my own again.

For the time being, I have sworn off tech in the garden. The watering system was the last experiment, and costly too. Before I had defeated it, it had soaked my wife and a week’s worth of groceries, made the cats look like weasels, and drenched the dog. Dealing with the Teamsters local that the cats and dog have was pretty easy, lots of treats for three days. But my wife has suggested some more expensive ” retreats” and dinner dates that might cost me more than the watering system.

Nope, back to the old days of rakes, shovels, and hoes.

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Distractible

Daily writing prompt
How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?
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I’ve always been a bit distractible. It was an issue for my family, in school, and socially. In high school, my girlfriend broke up with me because I was distracted by a blonde in a blousy ensemble. And teachers eventually wouldn’t let me sit by a window – traffic, infinitely more interesting than a quadratic equation!

Out!!!

I regarded my adventures in distraction as a bit visionary, but authority figures at the George Washington High School regarded them as rebellious. They resolved the conflict of opinion by expelling me. I grabbed my guitar and took the subway line to Greenwich Village.

In the Village were coffeehouses where young aspiring folksingers, like myself, learned our trade. The audience rewarded us with applause and put money into a basket that was passed around. Being rewarded for being distractible with greenback dollars! I liked it.

Useful

Maybe that’s why I began to associate my distractibility with creativity. At one point, I had a patient girlfriend ( who remained a lifelong friend!!) who would prod me and gently remind me that I had drifted off. In my mind, perhaps, I had been working on a resolution for a chord progression. Eventually, it progressed to thinking about carving, writing, and other things. Over the long run, I’ve made this tendency to drift off into an advantage. Some good ideas and projects have originated with my drifting off.

Do I say no to it? Yes. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize that I need to put limits on it for the sake of getting other needed, and often creative things, done. If I over control, though I grow resentful, and rebel against myself.

Ahhh. Self-rebellion. I’m still young at heart.

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Playing In The Garden

Daily writing prompt
What’s a secret skill or ability you have or wish you had?
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Sshhhhhhh! Let’s not tell anyone. And especially not the lawyers…they’d never understand!

Well, OK, just between you and me then. My secret ability was adaptability. I was often thrown into situations by life and sort of asked to “make something of it”. You know, being given a box of random parts and creating something from them. Not so much mechanically, but in terms of the sort of applied anthropological jobs I was given.

In my first professional job after grad school, I was hired and promptly told that there was only six months of funding, and I was on my own for resources. I had been hired to create cultural programming for a diverse urban population. The expectations seemed to have been that the Italians would never come to a Polish program, or the Portuguese with either of those, and the Irish would ignore the others as well.

I started with simple programs and did sneaky, basic ethnographic field research. I was looking for something that either bound them together as a community or that they shared. I found it in gardening. It was a small community within a larger one – only a square mile in area, but it was a fecund area for a cultural anthropologist to be thrown into. “Oh No! Please don’t throw me in the briar patch!” I found what I needed in the neighborhood gardens. Each ethnic group had different gardening traditions, and they frequently coexisted right next door to each other. Mrs. Gelowtsky discussed her garden with Mr. Fabrizio across the fence. And garden products were shared.

The Hidden Countryside

The Hidden Countryside was what I called the program. It did a lot of comparison and contrasting of the different ethnic gardening traditions in the neighborhood. I was a bit sneaky in my tactics. I was in one person’s garden one day, and then the next-door neighbor was asking if I might be interested in visiting theirs. By September, I had a large slide presentation ready. The gardeners decided to hold a large Harvest Festival at my Heritage Center, and the centerpiece was the slide presentation called the Hidden Countryside that featured all the traditions. Additionally, the gardeners, male and female, did not have a gender predominance. Everyone was represented.

It was a huge success and a hit with the Ward’s City Council member, too. He was influential in making sure that our funding was extended.

At The Movies and More

The next summer, I received training in video and used the data gathered for the Hidden Countryside to create a video. In those pre-digital, pre-Internet days, we “bicycled” the tape around to neighboring Public Access television stations, had another Harvest Festival, and showed the video presentation.

Eventually, in 1987, the Smithsonian Institution became interested in our work (mine and the community members!) I was hired to do extensive fieldwork for the Smithsonian, and in 1988, many gardeners were featured as part of the Smithsonian’s Festival of American Folklife on the Mall in Washington.

Onward

So that’s pretty much what I did as an applied anthropologist. I’ve applied the skills and techniques pretty broadly through the career. Although I am not currently working in that field, the approach is applied to whatever I do.

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Judy’s Number Game – #117

And the number is: 239

Bronze statue of a historical figure pointing forward, dressed in 18th-century military attire, with a sword in hand, set against a brick wall and surrounded by greenery.
A wooden sculpture of a chubby sailor character, wearing a hat and a blue outfit with a red scarf. The sculpture has a friendly facial expression and is displayed on a pedestal in an exhibition space.
Metal sculpture of a bird with outstretched wings against a cloudy sky.
Stairs in a park featuring sculpted stone blocks with intricate designs, surrounded by trees and sunlight.
A detailed sculpture of a winged figure with a dragon-like design, reaching out towards two cherubic figures on a brick building, against a clear blue sky.

It’s Art Monday from the archives!

  • A Statue of General John Stark
  • Carved figure in Sherborne Museum
  • An art installation along the river in Newburyport, Massachusetts
  • Carve chain links Burlington, Vermont
  • Also, Burlington, those pesky flying monkeys have taken up living quarters on the local train station!
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Spring? Ice Out!

Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite type of weather?
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I had to laugh a bit at the weather when I peered out the window this morning. Snow. Mind you, only a bare covering. But the temperature outside makes walking to where my sap buckets hang a futile journey. It’ll be too chilly for the sap to run. No syrup making tonight. It’s Traitor’s Spring. You won’t find that one in the search engines, I don’t think.

Traitor’s Spring

I learned the phrase on an island along the coast of Maine, and like many old things, I learned it in my “Salad Days”. And it was an antique saying then. So why would I put it among the favorites? Sure, won’t find the cheer squad out there doing happy songs, no cheerleaders doing routines. It’s just old Father Winter trying to restore his failing hold on us.

Well, to be fair, I didn’t exactly say it was a favorite. But it wouldn’t be spring in New England without a bit of Traitor’s Spring. It’s in there with the Ice Out Party, Making Maple syrup, and other antique Yankee Idiocies for spring.

Ice Out?

Wait. You never heard about Ice Out? You poor deprived…you ever heard about an ice out party? It’s when the ice finally breaks up on the lake or pond. By then, every sensible ice fisher has their shed and gear off the lake, or they’ll be sitting on the bottom. But when the ice is out, it’s time to have a real blast out party. But wait…there’s more. Sometimes, after everyone is blasted, there is a spontaneous drift towards the icy shore. Now in remote areas the ice out party happens on the shore. It’s not tropical out there by any means. Everyone strips to bare, goose-pimpled skin, and the brave ones dive in. A veritable maelstrom of frozen flesh, screams echoing across barren frozen wastes of ice and water.

Of course, there are those of us who merely watch, snicker, and laugh, that to is a part of the party.

So next time you drive past a frozen pond or lake this time of year, think about those wild rites of spring, and shiver.

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Collections

One of my wife’s relatives collected fine pewter. Unlike some people who are bored with their collections, she bubbled with historical details, the aesthetics, and the utility of the craft. She did what good collectors sharing their obsession should always do: draw you in, teach you, and share the wonder.

The saddest moment for me came after her death when a relative swooped in to corner the collection for sale. His discussions about it were all about how much money it would be worth at auction. Somehow, he had spent much time with her over the years and learned nothing.

I could have offered dissent, but kept quiet. People to whom fine art and craft are reduced to dollar signs are, by and large, unreachable. I know them from craft and boat shows; everything reduces to a dollar sign. curiously I’ve learned that pricing is an issue. A good piece underpriced on display doesn’t sell. Tag five dollars on though, and some people think it’s worth more now. It’s part of why pricing is such a critical part of sales. Price too low, and everyone but the really informed buyer is suspicious.

The action house sold the pewter, the relative was happy with the money, but I retain the memory of wonderful hours spent with tea, hermit pastry, and learning about the dear lady’s passions.

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Not All Teachers Are Human

Daily writing prompt
Who was your most influential teacher? Why?
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First published on March 25, 2023.


My most influential non-human teacher was my gray cat Clancy J Bumps ( don’t ask what the J was for, he didn’t like to be called by it and would attack madly). Among the nicknames he earned was – The Grey Menace. The Menace loved to fight. But he almost always won through strategy and intimidation. Few cats or dogs dared actually to engage him in full combat.

The Hound

An enormous German Shepherd learned this lesson the hard way. He thought the kitty was a handy snack. The Menace was tied on a leash in the yard. The dog did not know that the leash had a breakaway section for times just like that. Clancy mewed piteously and lured the dog into our yard. He then snapped the lead, assaulted the dog, and sent it into a hurried attempt to clamber over an eight-foot palisade fence. Afterward, the Menace sat there licking the blood of his claws. The dog’s owner was furious. I pointed out that the dog was collar and leashless, outside his yard and in mine. The dog also had attacked my poor, innocent cat. I refused to pay the dog’s vet bills.
Although the Menace tried to lure the dog back into the yard again, it whimpered every time it saw Clancy in the yard.

On Da Nip!

An excellent example of a teacher you’re thinking? Well, he tended to make friends with his foes after fights. Seeing four or so cats basking in the sun was amusing. With catnip growing as a weed in the garden, the afternoons often turned into catnip nap sessions.
The Menace was fiercely loyal to his friends and would threaten to tear you up if you threatened them. He also knew when to make a face-saving retreat and take credit for a victory.
He was a gourmet who loved chile, roast beef subs ( with hots, please), and relished a good dance party.

What did I learn from him? First, you should attack fiercely when attacked, make peace afterward, and enjoy life to its fullest.

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Easy and Hard

Easy and Hard – Stream of Consciousness Saturday, March 21, 2026

I was just looking at another bloggers picture of a harbor with some low fog blowing in. It was easy to whisper, “Looks like it’s blowin’ a smoky sou’wester.” But it was hard to acknowledge the man who’d taught me that over thousands of hours of coaching, exasperated mutual frustration, and eventually more than a bit of mutual dislike – no, at the end it was hate. At the very end when my marriage to his daughter was on “a lee shore” and headed for the rocks there was no communication at all. After she and I agreed to part, he siezed many of my tools as revenge.

But he formed half of my inputs that informed me as a sailor and a seaman. Between my father and he I learned to walk a deck, take up slack, tie a sheepshank, read tides, come about, and estimate when the weather would turn foul. Sometimes I tend to utterances that seem alien and foreign if you were not from a specific piece of coastline.

As a sort of comeuppance for the bad, I’ve given him a starring role in my stories about the coast and sailing. I give full credit to the man I called the Cap’n for all his mastery, while allowing for all the pettiness and casual idiocy to leak out.

See, what’s my dilemma? I owe a lot. And struggle with the satire while acknowledging the debt.

Louis N. Carreras, Woodcarver

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