Tag: art

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Snark

Last week, I got a snarky post from a dude who put down my carving, my stories, and even my little greenhouse workshop. He also pointed out that my political views were just mundane and made some vaguely threatening quips.

I’m not sure that this person ever got the message that the Blogosphere, “ is Liberty Hall, you can spit on the mat, and call the cat a bastard.” For the most part there is something for everyone. Don’t like what’s on offer here, just move along down the way to what’s on offer is more to your liking. There is no need to be rude, and I don’t think it’s too common outside the blatantly political blogs over in Hippocrits Corner.

I can’t help but feel that this individual, from the nature of his post, found it vaguely threatening that there were people out there producing art and craft in substandard accommodations—no proper studio. My God! They might be making things in their spare room! In the basement! Or God forbid on the kitchen table!

Yes, I know it’s disgusting that anyone would attempt to create seriously without major degrees in art, literature, or the proper studio, and a coterie of fellow travelers in Fine things. Disgusting!

And yet many of the people whose blogs I follow do precisely that. And yes, some of them have fine art and other degrees. As a matter of fact, few have what might pass as a “studio.”

I find the creative atmosphere of the community I’ve found to be amazingly unstuffy, sharing, appreciative, warm, and very dynamic. It ranges across oceans and continents, and contains people of every class, ethnicity, religious bent, and national origin. It might in fact be the first truly universal creative community. They create fine stories, fabric, pottery, woodwork, poetry, and works of non-fiction.

Of course, I reported the message as spam. But I also feel sorry for this person. There is so much on offer. It’s a shame to seal yourself off from it.

OK, I’ve had my rant and feel better for it!

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Dali and Bellamy, met for coffee…

Here’s what I stated last year when I replied to this same prompt:

“As I style myself as a ship’s carver, I can see myself as an apprentice in the shops of McIntire, Bellamy, Robb, or one of the Skillins brothers. When I visit the Mystic Seaport or Salem’s Peabody Essex Museum, I find myself standing among the works of those I consider my masters. “

Now, let’s walk a bit deeper into the woods. Watch the overhanging bushes here. The path is narrow and dark. 

One day, while running around with my friends in Manhattan, I literally ran into Salvador Dali—that’s right, the man himself—in the flesh. He courteously helped me get up and cautioned me to slow down. How did I know who he was? He was a hero in our house—a famous Spanish (actually, like my family, Catalan) artist in New York City. My Uncle Lenny’s portraits of ships’ in foam, surf, and storm may have graced the walls, but Dali was a recognized art superstar in our house.

Now, we can fast-forward to the very beginnings of my life as a carver. No, the first couple of years did not yield figureheads, sea sprites, or anything maritime. Sculptures and small works influenced by Henry Moore, Jean Arp, and Dali were the first things off my bench.

So you say, “Well, we don’t see much of that influence in your current work.” And you are right. But it’s more complex than that. It turned out that Dali was kicking around inside my mind more than I thought.

A few years ago, I had one of those intensely realistic dreams. I was sitting in a Portsmouth coffeehouse sipping an espresso and listening to Dali and John Haley Bellamy discussing distortion and shape in sculpture. Bellamy, one of my big heroes in maritime carving, talked about how he elongated the wings and necks of the eagles he carved for effect and to act as a counterpoint to realism. He also mentioned his minimalistic cutting of the feathers as something his contemporaries had yet to experiment with. Dali was excited and offered the opinion that Bellamy was an early proponent of many of the features that later surreal and abstract artists would elaborate on. Then they turned to me and asked what I thought.

I woke just as I was opening my mouth to reply. I quickly got out a book with many photos of Bellamy’s work. The extreme elongation of the necks and wings is there, but I never remember that being noted critically.

Don’t worry—my work will not involve dripping clocks or melting ships. However, I am still thinking about that dream and its implications for my future work. My ability is sufficient, and I might someday revisit some of my past impulses.

Why not?

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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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Mechanic?

“Yes, sir. We’ll haul it over to Joe’s, but if you ask me, it will take more than a great mechanic to put that baby back on the road!”

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Out of the tool chest

When I lived in Baltimore many years ago, I was a regular visitor at the Walters Gallery. I’d make a beeline to display a case that held miniature carvings done in boxwood. Tiny, precise, and beautiful. I was beginning my journey as a carver, and I took inspiration from those carvings about what was possible for a carver.

Over the years, I’ve considered those carvings an aspirational high point in carving. But my carving is more interpretive than precise. I decided to leave the absolute precision to friends like Bill Bromell, who used watchmaker tools and miniature lathes to shape tiny parts perfectly for model ships.

I made carvings for the bows, sides, and transoms of boats. Excess detail becomes damaged. So I do what any ship’s carver does: I hint but do not offer breakable complexity. There are tricks to this that are rarely mentioned in books. Only two books I know of talk about the trade of being a shipcarver. So, there is a lot to learn. And only a little available to teach it.

Inevitably, you become curious about how other people doing the same work do it. But ship’s carvers are thin on the ground, and none of the folks from the old days are still around. There were no YouTube or TikTok videos available. And they did not write books on how to do it. So you study the carvings, and when possible, you look at the tools.

Your tool kit reflects the carving that you do. Looking at a carver’s tool kit, you can start making reasonable guesses about the work. But tool kits disperse rapidly after a carver dies. Nobody else in the family is a carver. The tools are so much steel to the person clearing up the estate, and no one understands what half the stuff is for. So, the tools go into the estate sale and go to used tool sellers.

In the case of John Haley Bellamy, though, someone must have realized that his tool kit, or a part of it, might be of interest in a museum. There is an open chest of Bellamy’s tools at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. You can see peeking into it that, like many of us, he likes Addis tools and has various regular and deep engagement tools. A steel stamp is inscribed with Bellamy ( used to mark work). The chest is only open partially; only another carver like myself would be so interested that it would be preferable that the chest be completely open. The effect they were going for was more that one of the craftsman had stepped away for lunch and left his tool chest half open.

Books, videos, and even workshops all have a place in working towards mastery. However, few of us serve regular apprenticeships. I’d offer these tips:

  1. Haunt museums and look at the carvings.
  2. Try to work backward to the tools and techniques used.
  3. Seek out mentors who you can tap for knowledge, and don’t expect instant mastery.
  4. Pay little attention to the tool offerings of the big woodworking companies and seek out restorable older tools.

More patterns, sweeps, curves, and styles are available than modern makers can afford to manufacture.

It’s a big puzzle, and you should enjoy solving it.

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Choose, Wisely

Yes, I am “older than dirt.” I remember not only the days before the internet but also those when computers were behemoths that required buildings to house them. Yep, the horse-and-buggy days of modern technology.

I love the resources that the technology has put within my reach.

And I fervently pray that I will never have to do a manual layout of lettering for a carving again ( before PCs). Or complete pre-internet research on an owner’s weird, small production run, one-design boat for a portrait. What a nightmare it was. Running around to specialty libraries. Working with bad photos, or make telephone calls to builders who retired in 1965.

Admitting it goes against my grain as a professional woodcarver, but I have resorted to YouTube videos on occasion for information on techniques I’ve never tried before.

All the above being true, I have restrained my use of the resources. I’ve resisted “borrowing” woodenware designs from the many available sources. Haven’t you noticed a certain sameness in some design areas? And I’ve learned to be skeptical of oft-repeated “wisdom”—it lends credence to the trope that if it’s repeated often enough, it must be true.

The internet is a tool, and we shouldn’t let the tool determine the nature of our art or craft. It’s just a tool we need to utilize—not be utilized by. Regarding this wonder, we should, as the ancient knight in the Indiana Jones movie suggested, “choose, but choose wisely.”

Daily writing prompt
Do you remember life before the internet?
View all responses
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Magic Car!

I have no idea what the mileage would be, but you certainly would be noticed if you drove up in this baby!

Seen this weekend at the local garden center.

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Making a Mess

I don’t get it. The photos of people’s studios are so neat and clean. Do people work at art and craft there?

Sure, I clean up (eventually), but making something out of wood requires removing shavings, chips, and dust. The essence is removal; all that removal has to go somewhere – the bench and the floor – via the broom out the door. Work and projects pile up.

OK, here it is—mea culpa—what a woodcarver’s workshop looks like while working. No, it’s not a doctored photo.

More than you can take, huh? You can’t sting me with comments about how my mother must be ashamed.

Neat freaks can look away now. I make messes and have fun doing it!

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Satisfaction

Stream of Consciousness Saturday – April 27, 2024

Next weekend, I’ll be showing my work along with other local artists in the Cultural Council’s spring art exhibit. As a result, I am going through boxes of stuff left over from the last actual show I did two years ago. There is a range of goodies – spoons, spatulas, forks, cutting boards, bowls, signs, small boxes, and boat portraits. That’s right! There are some odds and ends, like wooden combs from when I made a small batch of those last year. 

Although I see myself as a maritime carver, I’ve never stopped doing other things. I’m interested in the lives and works of carvers like Bellamy and McIntire, so I’ve read their biographies and found that they, too, dabbled, sampled, and worked in many areas. My conclusion is that putting your creative interests into a harness, bridle, and a set of blinkers is a mistake. People may desire or appreciate one aspect of your work above the others, but that doesn’t mean you have to produce only one thing.

That raises the issue of whom are you pleasing as an artist. The public that purchases? You? or each by turn? 

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Angel

This little folk art-style angel is a sort of Christmas-time dreamcatcher. It swings above our Christmas tree every year. I carved it one winter years ago when the kids were still little.