Chapters 5 and 6 of the Dragon and Acanthus Lesson have just been added to the online woodcarving school. I think I am about half-way through editing this project.
It’s sort of an ordeal going through and editing this – it’s like carving it all over again. Even though I am not doing a lot of editing (just removing the areas where my hand or head totally block the carving and identifying what tools are used when I switch) it feels like a very long process.
I am currently teaching a 5 day beginning carving class at Marc Adams School of Woodworking in Indianapolis, IN. I’ve got 16 students in the class, and it’s going great! Everyone is really doing well. All the students are very ambitious and eager to learn – several of them have stayed into the evening to continue their projects. It’s wonderful from a teacher’s perspective to have eager and enthusiastic students.
It reminds me of when I first started to carve. I was working at a full-time job in Minneapolis as a desk-top publisher (computer graphics). The more I learned to carve, the less I wanted to be at my day job. While I was at my “real” job, I would dream about what I would carve when I got home from work in the afternoon. Then I would carve into the evening and wouldn’t want to stop – sometimes not realizing that it was after mid-night.
Living in an apartment and carving on a bench in my bedroom caused some awkward moments with my neighbors. There was one time that I lost track of time and was carving well into the night – using a mallet – completely in my own carving world. I got a hysterical phone call from my neighbor – “I can’t stand it anymore – STOP!”. I stopped. My neighbor and I are still friends to this day – we still laugh about those times.
I still have the great love for carving that I had when I first started – it has just evolved into a more “mature” love… more stable, and not completely consuming – isn’t that how love should evolve???