Tag: dailyprompt-2083

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Busy, Busy

Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite hobby or pastime?
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Just one? You have to be kidding! Lets see computer games, writing this blog, my garden, carving, spending time with my family, spending time with my pets and of course my model railroad.

Let me spill the beans on getting rid of frustration in enjoyable and creative ways. Play. Creative play can take many forms. Sometimes, like my carving, they may even occasionally yield profit. But don’t take up a pastime because it is determined to be profitible. That’s a business, and just a source of more stress.

A hobby or pastime is not emotionally neutral. You have to have some passion for it to be sustainable. Some hobbies are solitary, and others have group participation. There is nothing unique in my hobbys, I am not pioneering new pathways, this makes it easy for me to share with others the enthusiams, knowledge and insights gained by doing them. It’s part of what makes them fun.

The model railroad was not meant to be a group participation endeavor, but my cats feel otherwise:

Marcus and Sabrina like to play Catzilla on the model railroad I have been building for the last two years.
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Branches

Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite hobby or pastime?
View all responses

Yesterday, I took the first cuts into one of the thick and wide cherry planks I purchased last month for making bowls. About four inches from one end got cut off due to the inevitable end checking—some of these bits I saved for possible combs or other dodads. I’ve learned it’s wisest not to speculate too early on what odd bits will turn into. My shop produces very little waste. Odds and ends become spoons, spatulas, small bowls, boxes, and quirky carvings. Even the most negligible waste has its role in feeding the woodstove, and the ashes fertilize the garden. There is no panacea for waste, but some interesting solutions await finding.

When he was young, my oldest used to pick up all the twisty scrap from the bandsaw and create fascinating assemblage sculptures with a hot glue gun. I’ve suggested he take a box of scrap home on his next visit and experiment. He might have an item suitable for sale and display. And I have less scrap to repurpose.

From the preceding, you might think that my favorite pastime was wood salvage, and I do take a lot of satisfaction when I’ve found the correct use for a piece of wood. But actually, My carving is the hands-down winner. Carving is my favorite hobby, pastime, and occupation rolled into one.

But there are different branches here. I love the traditional carving styles I use when carving eagles and ship portraits. But I am also in love with the opportunity to do freehand carving that results in flowing forms. That’s where the spoons and bowls come in. The conventions I use for an eagle or carving a schooner go by the board, and the only thing that matters is the grain of the wood and my interpretation of how it should be expressed. 

Not to go too far down the sinkhole of where my stylistic influences lie, but I did not start to be a nautical or marine carver. A chance meeting with Dali in New York when I was a high school student and early interest in the works of Arp set me off in a very different direction. If you ever ran across any of my very early work, you wouldn’t recognize it as related to the ship’s portraits I currently create. Only one of those very early works still survives in my hands, and I have no idea where the galleries sold the others.

So, the bowls and spoons are my way of letting out that other side of my creative spark. I like to play with shape, contour, and contrast. 

And you thought I was making functional spoons. Silly!