By Keith Randich
There used to be a time when people had the knowledge and skill to
take materials at hand and create the things they needed to survive.
That material usually was wood, as trees stood in abundance. Although
the objects they created were not permanent, the wood was able to
be worked by the few tools those people possessed.
Once their shelter was complete and the livestock penned, they built
articles that added to their comfort. As their lives improved and time
permitted, they would use their wood-working skills to produce
ornamentation and entertainment. A chair, a spoon, and a bowl were
designed to fill utilitarian purposes, yet each one became an object
of decoration in the hands of a whittler during the long, cold
winter.
Toys were created for children, chests for blankets, and boxes for
pipes, tobacco, and other items of value. Towns appeared and businesses
were able to provide many of the items that people had been forced to
create for themselves. Laws of fashion and social status dictated that
homes be equipped with items produced of shiny materials from far-away
places.
As the necessity to create faded, so went the knowledge and skills that
so many possessed. For many years, only a small number of artisans, and
a smaller number of hobbyists, carved furniture for the well-to-do and
objects for the secular trade. I find it interesting that the last
twenty years have seen a rebirth of handcrafts such as woodworking and
woodcarving.
In the same period of time, we have seen so much technology put in
place to enable us to do less and less work, thousands of folks are going
back to activities that our ancestors found socially unacceptable to
be performing. It's as if a large segment of the population gave up
their TV remotes, 70-channel cable, and leather recliners and decided
that perfoming might be a little more interesting than being a fulltime
audience. After a day on the rock pile, they found a couple of hours
spent in front of the workbench a much more creative release than taking
in the network's New Fall Lineup.
The term "whittling" conjures images of old men making shavings while
sitting on a bench in front of the general store. My definition of
whittling (and Webster backs me up on this) is simply any carving done
with a knife. Carving implies the use of chisels, gouges, and a mallet,
while sculpting is just carving while wearing a beret with a plump
nude sprawled out in front of you. Feel free to substitute any of the
three terms when speaking to your friends and family.
The intent of this text is to distribute some of that lost knowledge
back to people who are tiring of playing the spectator role and are
looking for an avenue to channel their creativity. The text is ordered
such that skills taught in one project are built upon in the next. This
book differs from many other instructional carving books in that I
really try to present each step separately. It means we'll start out
slowly, but I guarantee you'll know which end of the knife to push by
the time you've completed a couple of projects.
