Sculpting Wood
Sometimes wood is not a friendly medium to the artist. You can have a
sculpture well on the way and well thought out to the finish when a bad spot appears that
goes deep into the piece. This happens more often than not. Working with wood is a
constant collaboration between the Artist's idea and the ever changing nature of the wood.
Even well after the piece is finished it continues to change in subtle and even sometime
disturbing ways. Because of this, furniture makers have to have an exacting knowledge of
how these changes will affect the joints of their furniture. A quality piece of furniture
will withstand the expansions and contractions of time. A sculpture, because of its odd
thickness and variations makes it more difficult to deal with. Cracking is the most common
change that happens. To avoid this from happening artists use different strategies such as
gluing blocks of wood together. I prefer to use chunks of wood that I find which makes it
more difficult to control. Sometimes I dry a piece out severely, causing the cracks, if
any, to appear right away. When it gets to a moisture level below normal room humidity I
jam wedges into the cracks so when it swells up to what is normal, it squeezes the wood
wedges tight, then I grind them off and it looks natural. Or I simply plan the cracks
right into the total concept of the piece. Philosophically, I think the wood should be
allowed to be what it is. From my point of view it is beautiful because it is wood. But I
see things in wood and I have uncontrollable desires to carve it out and so it becomes a
collaboration between me and the wood.