ANGEL OF HEARTS; A TRIBUTE TO DAVID CHAVEZ

Inspired by David Chavez and the works of Patrocino Barela

I would like to tell you a little story about this woodcarving (No. 8730). I carved it as a Valentines gift for my wife-to-be, Linda. The year was 1998, it was about two hours before she was coming home from work to my converted school bus. I suddenly realized at about for in the afternoon, that I had forgotten to get her a gift (oh, what a guy thing to do!!!).

I quickly went out to my fire wood pile and located an exquisite, but quite gnarled piece of Rocky Mountain Juniper (perfect). Working feverishly for the next couple of hours, I had the carving waiting for her when she arrived. Day saved with seconds to spare!

Besides the amazingly short amount of time that this chunk of fire wood became a treasured gift, there is more to the story...

A few years prior to this, a chap by the name of David Chavez strolled into my studio at the Pueblo Alegra Mall and asked me if I could teach him to carve. David not only wanted to learn to carve but he had a certain style of carving on his mind and that is what he wanted to do. He wanted to carve in the style of Patrocino Barela a famous Taos carver from the days of the great depression.

So David became a student and a good student at that. Turns out that David's uncle had a collection of several hundred of Barela's carvings, and some of these are what we used to train David to achieve a carving style which was like Berela's, was definitely David's.

David studied with me for a couple of years, during which time we became friends. David was beginning to get a following of people who wanted his angels and he started doing local art shows. One autumn when I was teaching carving at UNM I had invited David to bring some of his work and talk with my class. After the class David told me that he was invited to do a Christmas show at Los Alamos and asked me to do the show with him and I accepted.

David's style was similar to the above angel except that the wings were always down or added on. I told Dave that I would do relief carvings and we decided that at the end of the show we would just split any profits. And if there were any profits we decided that other shows would be in order.

That week I went to a local wood mill in El Salto and had them cut me diagonal Juniper slabs which I would use for my relief carvings. I took some of the slabs to my UNM class and had the students look at a slab and see what they thought they saw in it. Being the majority of my class were hispanic with a strong Catholic origin, it came as no surprise that the majority of them saw Mother Mary. Thus the birth of my Taos Spiritual Series. By the time of the show we both had a good number of carvings.

Unfortunately just before the show, my friend David had a heart attack which took his life. I never did the show. I had know from early on that David had this heart condition and that is why he retired and took up woodcarving. The Carving had enabled David to do something creative and something he enjoyed in the last years of his stay here on earth. For me I gained a friend. A friend who was a Taos native and who shared his knowledge of the area. A friend who I will never forget. A friend who turned me on to private showings of the the carvings of Barela and the stories of how his uncle came to have such a valuable collection (each carving was worth a minimum of $1,000 and many of them much more).

David's uncle was Barela's neighbor.Seems that Patrocino was more often than not shy of money for food and such, So, David's uncle would purchase carvings from Patrocino and times for as little as a pint of whiskey or he would give Patrocino's wife money for food. Over the years he had acquired more carvings than he had room to display them so many of them were stored in boxes to be rotated out for display or just stored away. When he died, he left his collection to the members of his family.

I am ever thankful for this time I spent with David and his family and for being privileged to see this wonderful collection of Patrocino Barela's woodcarvings.

Terry R. Wolff

P.S. A footnote about Patrocino Barela life. Born during 1900 in Bisbee Arizona, his father moved his family to Taos in 1904. He emerged in 1936 as one of America's most important artist when he was featured in a show of Federal Art Project artists in New York's Museum of Modern Art and was the first Mexican American artist to achieve national acclaim. Patrocino was a prolific woodcarver. He died at the age of 64, when a fire took his life as he slept in his carving shed on the night of his 33rd anniversary.

KNIFE MAKING (PHASE TWO)

In this step I have roughly shaped all the raw steel knife blanks into their actual shape as you can see.

With the work load that I have taken on since I started this project, it is taking me longer than I had anticipated to show you the various phases of making a knife so it looks as though there will be other postings made in between my "KNIFE MAKING" posts.

So I am rethinking my my plan and have decided that my next "KNIFE MAKING" post will follow the progression of one knife blade. I just went through all my photos and have found enough images so I can do it. So my next post about this subject will show the various stages from beginning to end.

I will start on this as soon as I find the time.

Terry R. Wolff

TWIRL SIGN

I just finished and delivered this sign to a local toy store in Taos. The sign was carved from 2 inch Sugar Pine stock, which has a natural finish with spar varnish for protection from the elements. This sign was designed by Cowgirls Design, a Taos graphic design shop. I think that they did a great job on the design and am glad that I was asked to make it a reality.

Twirl is located just off the Taos Plaza next to the Alley Cantina in Tom W's old Buddhist Tea Room. An interesting building to visit and it is amazing to see what they did with the place.

Terry R. Wolff

KNIFE MAKING (PHASE ONE)

Well I am at last at it. Starting my knife making process. And yes I do mean process. There are several steps I take in making my carving knives and I will write about them on this blog as I proceed though the process.

(I just want to make a side comment here as I know that there are a

number of those reading this that are doing so on Facebook. And I want those of face book to know that what you are reading is being

imported from my blog therefore you are not seeing this in the same format that is in the blog. So if you want to see this post as I had intended it to be please take the time and go to my blog which is located at http://carvinginfo.blogspot.com.)

Today is Phase One.

This means that I go to where I keep my knife templates and select which ones I want to make. As you can see I keep them all in one place so I can easily access them.

Next I go to my raw steel stock and with a trusty Sharpie I layout the shape of the knives on the appropriate knife blanks. I will layout all the knives which

I intend to make during this session of knife making, this is the first step of the knife making process. Today I will be doing

the layout for some eight different knives. Six of these are for carving or crafts, one is a kitchen/do everything knife, and the last is a mini dagger or cleavage knife which is warn from a chain or lanyard as a neckless and usually by some Harley gals (yes the knives are in a scaber).

After I finish a knife blank layout, I put the blank into a bin where they wait for the next step in the process.

As you can see, there is not too much I can say about Phase One. Perhaps tomorrow I will start Phase Two.

Terry R. Wolff

KNIFE MAKING TIME

Just got back from spending some catch-up time at Wired Cafe to find that I received some knife orders today. So I went to the cupboard to fetch some knives and the cupboard was depleted. Now I am going to have to play catch-up on some knife making.

The next thing I did was to make sure that I had enough steel to make some more knives and I do. So I will be busy this week making a batch of my standard 1" Magic Knives and maybe some mid size Magic Knives also. I am going to use up some of the knife blanks I made and then as I deplete my stock of blanks I will start discontinuing some of the various sizes I have been offering. I also plan on making a couple of batches of Detailing Knives as well. Both the Curved and Straight cutting edge blades but I am thinking of discontinuing the French Curve Detailing Knife but I will make that decision as I work my way through the up coming knife making process.

The reason I decided to write this is because once I post it to the world, I will have to get started making these knives.

The Magic Knife is used in my one knife carving technique. I will touch more about this in a future posting. I will also talk more about how the Magic Knife is made and why it has that name also in some future posting.

For more information about my Magic Knives and my Detail Knives please visit Shop Taos where you can read more about them.

Well enough blogging for today.

Terry R. Wolff

CARVING SYMBOLS & MY CARVING THEORY

One of the thinks that I really enjoy carving are symbols. I have always enjoyed type fonts so it only seems natural to me that symbols would follow. Symbols can be carved either into the wood (incised) or they can be carved as relief.

The carvings shown to the right are part of a commission I did for a Colorado client. She also ordered a sign and only one of the two carvings shown here. I did the second one for Linda and myself.

I find Chinese calligraphy also makes for interesting incised carvings. I first realized that I was able to correctly imitate their calligraphy was at a Chinese restaurant in Bellingham WA. Their menu had a number followed by the calligraphy which was for the kitchen staff. The waitress had left her pad with the menus so we could put the number of what we wanted. I decided that I would insert the calligraphy instead and before I knew it, the staff was talking to me in Chinese (this later happened to me in a remote village in China as well). That is when I knew that I could write the unknown language and have it understood. Over the years I have done several calligraphy commissions which are now here in the US as well as in Japan and China.

Here is my thoughts about carving anything. First is to perfect your very basic skill level and secondly look for the basic shapes in all your subjects. I look at each subject or project in basic shapes which will later be refined as the carving progresses toward completion. For example when I teach a new student to carve I have them do some extremely basic incised exercises. I then advance them to using those initial exercises into an abstract design. From there I move them into carving a "Welcome" sign (Letter Carving). I use this word because it includes all the previously learned exercises. Do I want them to become sign carvers is not the point. The point is that by perfecting their carving skills in small increments they can easily and effortlessly move into whatever carving style they may choose.

I will carve a welcome sign just to warm up before tackling a much more complicated commissioned carving. The commission may not even include any lettering at all. The point is that in less than twenty minutes I have warmed up carving something so basic I can practically carve them in my sleep and maybe I do. I have started more winter fires with welcome signs than most people have carved anything (that is because, they don't all appeal to me or there is an earlier carving on the other side). This is like doing stretches before heading to the lift to start a day of skiing (I wonder if I will be able to write blogs and ski too?).

Although most of the symbols I carved have been incised carvings, I have done carvings such as Celtic designs in relief as well. The important thing to remember is whatever you choose to carve, identify its basic shapes and go from there. Once you do that, even if you are carving a letter, you can carve them backwards and upside down because they become geometric shapes and not letters. the same goes for carving a face, a horse, or whatever you choose to carve.

Anyway I am done rambling so if you are a carver just find yourself an interesting design and have at it. You may be surprised at what you may accomplish.

Terry R. Wolff

WOODS I LIKE TO CARVE

There are several woods which I prefer to carve. Since I do commissions I use various woods for different carving projects. The next two woods are perhaps my most commonly carved woods and are perhaps the best woods for getting started with. These two woods are my carving mainstays. Any carving project could be accomplished with either of these woods.

Linden wood (Bass Wood) is an excellent wood for general carving as it has a relatively soft, tight, straight and perhaps boring grain. Which makes it an excellent wood to sink your knife or carving tools into. I like this wood for doing commissions of small figurines and reliefs. Since this wood will not hold up well to the elements it is not good for exterior sculpture or signs. This wood takes finishes well.

Sugar Pine or northeast white pine are good woods for most general carving projects which do not have fine details unless you have extremely sharp tools. Other then synthetic carving media, pine is a good choice for carved signs which are going to be painted or are going to be stained or finished naturally.

Some of my favorite carving woods include...

Walnut, this is an excellent wood and one of my favorites. It is an interesting wood in that it has a grain which is hard, has character, fun to carve, and takes to oil finishes. As far as I am concerned, this is what marble is to stone sculptors. Carving of walnut can be finely detailed or abstract with only smooth curves.

Teak, which a number of carvers tend to stay away from since it is renown to dull your tools is really a great wood. Teak has a rich grain that makes it interesting to carve.

African and Honduran Mahogany are good carving woods. However their grain can be tricky to carve and cause ripping if you are not careful. As with most tropical woods they have an open grain. Philippine Mahogany (Luan) is not a true mahogany and can be an okay wood some carving projects. Luan is actually any tropical wood that has similar characteristics and their grains range from soft to extremely hard and stingy. Luan really has nothing in common with a true Mahogany other then if stained with a mahogany stain they may appear to be Mahogany.

Eastern Cedar and Southwestern Juniper although both have a tricky grain to carve, do produce interesting carvings. Eastern Cedar comes from larger trees then the Southwestern Juniper. This means that the Eastern Cedar is mostly available as the reddish heart wood and also is known as Aromatic Cedar. Juniper has a reddish heart wood with a creamy sap wood and makes for some interesting carvings. The early Spanish settlers of the southwest used this wood for carving their Santos. There are about three different types of Juniper, some tend to have a more brownish heard wood. Juniper and Eastern Cedar are very similar and often mistaken for each other. I like Juniper because of its contrast between the heart wood and the sap wood and allows me to use this in my compositions.

Fruit Woods are always good for carving as they have a lot of grain characteristics which make for interesting carving. My favorites are Cherry, Pear, Apple, and Plum. I have a seen some interesting works carved in coconut and other types of nuts.

Other woods you may consider...

Oak can be used but it has drawbacks in that it has a heavy grain which can interfere with your design. With that said, if you keep your design simple or use the grain as part of that design you will be happy with this wood. American oak both red and white have a broader grain then English Oak which has been used for appliques on English furniture. So if you could acquire English Oak you could easily do more detailed work without having the grain interfering with your design.

Alaska Cedar which comes from well you can figure that out on your own. This wood carves much like Linen wood but is somewhat harder. It has a yellowish coloration and was used by northwest tribes to carve mask and totem poles.

Aspen and Cottonwood have also been used for carving but I personally have not enjoyed working with them.

There is a variety other woods that have been used by carvers from all over the world so there is no end to woods that you can use for carving. I have only mentioned some of the woods which I am personally familiar with. So find some wood and start carving.

Terry R. Wolff