Authentic Nautical Accessories, and Custom Furnishings
For Fandangos' Flashback Friday. Originally published on April 26,2020 Ego? Sure, I do. Why else would I have done all those shows? Blog posts and blather about my carving from one end of the internet to the other! I guess mine is as healthy as anybody else's. But you know who I admire? It's the …
Artists and crafters can become lost among the ads and catalogs of new tools. But it's worthwhile to consider and remember what our most basic tolls can achieve before we rush out and buy the newest thing. For the carver, that toll is the lowly knife. curved chip design whirling circle chip design a house …
Years ago, I had a weird dream. Two of my favorite artists, John Haley Bellamy and Salvador Dali, were sitting with me in a coffeehouse discussing art. I merely sat by and listened while the two masters talked. They were deeply involved in a discussion of exaggeration and distortion in art. At one point, they …
Every once in a while, you need to shake things up. People fall into habits, wear blinders on their eyes, and lose the broader perspective. This loss of perspective can sneak up on a wood carver easily. You are comfortable carving in one or two species and get flummoxed when you see work in something …
How the heck did he do that? That may be the first question you ask of Ed Menard, who carves these incredible cedar fans and birds in cedar. A sharp knife and knowledge of how cedar likes to open along the lines of the grain are vital to making it all work.Years ago, while I …
Daily writing promptTell us about the last thing you got excited about.View all responses Sometimes, it's just the little things that get you the most excited. It's like a surprisingly wonderful French Toast at the Gray Jay restaurant in Burlington, Vermont ( OK, a shameless commercial for a place I like!). Or a wonderful morning …
We were at a tavern in the Seaport district in New York. I had just won a bet on recognizing a carver's work based on their tool cuts. It was an easy win; the carvings I had identified were by a carver whose work I was familiar with.
The carving shown here is in the Chase House in Strawberry Banke, a unique museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, that preserves the 300-year history of a waterfront neighborhood. The carving is attributed to ship carver Ebenezer Dearing and is in the formal parlor.
The buzz among some of those studying traditional crafts was that they were not entirely sure that Louis Charpentier was “really” traditional. His roots in rural Quebec carving animal figures for an Ark were unimpeachable. His decades of service as a designer for a plastics manufacturer worried some. But, carving plastic, Carving styrofoam? For some, these placed him beyond the pale.
There are always variations on old standards. Some are even improvements.
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