For me carving during lockdown was a self indulgent experience which gave me plenty of time to develop ideas and to carve new pieces. What more could I have wished for! however as the second year of intermittent periods of lockdown passed something changed. The urge to be creative left me! No contact with people, no visiting galleries, no travel, no time with other carvers, no inspiration! And so for the first part of 2021 I dried up. However things changed as lockdown ended. My husband and I booked a trip to Cumbria and a house for 10 people .We went for a weeks walking with my sons, their partners, my sisters and my niece. We has a fantastic week of walking, talking, laughing, eating, drinking. An oasis of love after a drought.
I came home ready to carve and started on a piece of spalted chestnut, a pale delicate coloured wood with dark veins of salting running through it. I had an idea for an abstract piece that would show off the natural grain and allow me to express feelings about the light being at the end of the tunnel. The form I settled on was that of a partial mobius strip almost spinning like a galaxy opening up. It is called ‘New Beginning”. It just felt right at this time.
So many people had not spent time together and had missed important family time but were now able to see those people. I wanted to capture something of the nature of the love that and got many of us through lockdown. I carved ‘Eternal Love’ out of a piece of olive wood. The form is based on a Mobius strip which symbolises eternity. I worked hard on the finish to create a silky smooth tactile finish.
Then just for fun I carved a whale tail, a project I had been thinking about for a while. I stained it with Van Dyke crystals before finishing it with Danish oil and wax.
These were finished in time for Wirral Open Studio Tour, my first exhibition in two years. A lovely event. I opened my workshop and garden and filled them with woodcarvings. It was lovely to chat to the visitors, just fantastic. Chatting to people about carving, sharpening, types of wood and opportunities to learn how to carve. I came out of it thinking about what to carve next: finish my gargoyle, finish my Gollum portrait, develop some more abstract ideas?? Definitely a shopping trip to replenish my depleted wood stores.
