Carving experience

Working on one of my earliest carvings. (1998)

Oddly enough, most of my experience in woodworking (and other things) was handed down to me from my family.  During high school I developed my design skills and techniques of wood carving with help from my grandfather, William MacCrea.  I experimented in many other media before I found that I favored woodcarving the most.  Some of the other media included leather, stone (chiseling), illustration and some clay work -  all of which I found very interesting and exciting.

Following graduation I traveled to the East Coast of Ireland (in the Boyne valley) to work with another man skilled in Celtic woodcarving, a fellow named Clive O' Gibney.  I learned a great deal about cleaning up my work and he also taught me some new ways to decorate and refine the surface of the carvings.

There is quite a difference in carving styles between Clive and my family, I think the main reason for that is from how we each interoperate the art form itself!  With Clive's method he makes the carvings in a sort of "blown up" fashion that makes the hole form, positive and negative areas bigger.  In doing so it gives the worker the liberty to use the mallet nearly all the way though the project, giving you great speed.  

The way I had always constructed my work up to the point prior to the trip was with a lot more detail, and each piece described a story or mythological figure.  Much of my work that you can see in the galleries reflects on these two styles, and they both seem to (for the most part) remain apart from one another.  

When I returned home I was full of ideas and inspirations to put into wood sculpture.

Picture taken 2002

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