MY CARVING CORNER~By Ralph Duncan

There is something I love about shaping wood. I am not sure if it is the organic nature of a once living thing or just the texture and the tactile feedback through the touch of my fingertips.  
But, I love it and I love carving wood. 

Woodcarving was one of my first endeavors in making art-somewhere around the year 2000. It took a while to get the hang of handling the tools, especially the sharpening part. Oh yeah, I did go through lots of band-aids as well.

But, eventually, through copying pieces and watching others and lots of practice, I began to make some pieces I was fairly happy with. Sometimes they turned into a Santa or perhaps a shelf mouse that still looks over my shoulder when I am in the shop.  

Sometimes, it will be a hand carved and painted cedar sign. 

After a lot of copying and drawing practice, I started designing my own characters, like Spencer the rabbit here. Spencer is an anthropomorphized rabbit that made his way as an idea into my head and onto a sketch. After some refinement, he was transferred to two sides of a block of wood, and of course eventually a final carving “in the round.”

Eventually, carving details started appearing on a few small pieces of furniture I designed and built. This small mirror sold at a local art gallery.  

Another piece was this hall hull model of a classic tall ship. This hand-carved piece started out life as the detailed drawing of the ship’s hull shape, called “lines.”

Since around 1790, shipwrights and naval architects have been sculpting half hull models for the purpose of designing and visualizing new boat hull designs.  Somewhat sadly, these days hulls can be generated and modified in the blink of an eye through the magic of computer modeling. Today, the practice of “building” half hulls has been relegated more to creating a souvenir of a favorite boat, much like a painting. But, for some, like me, it is an opportunity to bring back to life (without building the whole boat) some of the old classics. With access to the ship’s lines, the famous schooner AMERICA can be proudly displayed for all to enjoy. 

When an artist, artisan, or craftsman creates a painting or object with his own hands, there is at that moment a direct and immediate connection between the touch of the object to his hands and this mind and heart. At the moment of creation, all that is that artist, all that is his environment, his passions and even the music he is listening to, is reflected in that piece. For this reason, each piece, though it may be similar to another, is unique unto its own.


It is my hope that when you pick up a piece of original art of any medium, you begin to feel some sense of the artist at the time the piece was created.  If you take home one of my carvings, I hope you will pick it up often, feel it in your hands – the facets, the texture, the weight – and each time you discover something new about your feelings for that piece.