Nobody knows why
wood carvers are wood cravers. Not even they can tell you why. It’s time
somebody try. Carving a wooden bowl going at the rate of 1400 revolutions a per
minute is risky and most likely something that Ed looked forward to doing when
he came to his workshop. He was always clever with his hands but in the
last decade of his life he became a master in this art. Many of his neighbors
came to watch, a few would donate blocks of woods from their farms and woods. Wood and steel are uncomfortable separately
or together. His friends marveled at his passion.
Any day at his
workshop, he would start his day by looking over the blocks of spalling maple
or cherry, ash or walnut and figure in his head what project he would tackle.
Into his work pants, work gloves and protective face guard and out he goes to
work. He starts his day, checking out the air-dried wood that had been drying
for six months or more, Minutes later he’s fast at work. As he pondered which block of wood he would
craft his next bowl, he reviewed his simple turning tools. Like a surgeon he
would sharpen his simple rougher, then his 90-degree detailer, check his simple
shear cutting finisher and prepare to put the wood on the chuck.
For some people,
this is the scary part as a steel wheel turning at breakneck speed, and you
take a gouging tool and start smoothing the outside of the wood into a curved
bowl. The woods chips are sailing through the air while you have your air
compressor vacuuming up the dust particles from clogging your lungs. Your eyes
are straining to see that you are not cutting too much wood and making it too
thin and you might lose track of where you are. Is it worth it?
Inside your
protective shield, the wood chips are flying everywhere. There’s sawdust down
your neck. You got to be careful to place the detailer on the bar so that your
fingers don’t get smashed. But you emerge from this holocaust hugging, with
your calloused hands, a unique crafted bowl with a burl and detail that reveals
the test of time. Wood and steel.
You have worked
hours to craft this unique work of art, not concerned about the months you had
to wait for the moisture to exit the wood, or the fact that after hours turning
a beautiful piece of wood, you discovered a crack that made it impossible to
save. You discovered that the learning continues after all those years of
making beds and chairs, for this craft requires more skill and understanding.
Once you have designed your bowl and unstuffed your nostrils; you can almost
breathe again. Next comes the tedious hours of oiling and waxing and sanding
your bowl and then re-sharpening your gouges and cleaning your grimy tools. You
a one-man cleaning crew at the workshop as the floor needs sweeping and you
gather the woodchips usually to put into your veggie garden or given away as
compost for some neighbor.
Back at the workshop,
you and a neighbor, would sit a spell, tired but stimulated, admiring another
piece of your art, or relieved that you had accomplished another repair order,
drinking coffee and laughing, and feeling good about one another. Nobody
outside your world can ever quite know that feeling of what it means to sit in
the quiet of your wood shop. It was like a holy chapel where you met God who
had come to bring you peace. There’s no way that you would ever quit this job,
and you wonder how did this hobby became your passion. Yet, only God knows why.
Perhaps to give you comfort when your beloved spouse died, she was your passion
and when she went home to her heavenly reward she gave you this gift to keep
your mind and heart occupied.
God took your sorrow
and poured it down a drain, that freed you from sadness until you heard a
familiar voice of God saying: “For salvaging wood from the fires of a woodstove
or people whose wood treasures needed repair, “I have to relied on your hands.”
