Have you ever had any of your work lost in fire?
I had a good customer call a few months ago with news that their home had burned and 3 of my pieces were damaged, as well as some other architectural details. I don’t know why that gives me a knot in my stomach.
On another note, I’m back to doing a little carving that has been driving me crazy. The kitchen I’m doing for an old artist friend heard “Coach Newton” my inner voice working me over. Like my high school coach and some old sailboat racing buddies call me Newt. She had bought a bowl that I’d turned with a frog carved along the rim, so she insisted that I carve a Newt in or on an architectural detail that I was planning to use in the middle of a shallow cabinet over the kitchen sink. I can’t tell you how much time I spent studying the possibilities, hoping for some Devine inspiration that never came, so with time running out rather than a bas-relief like I should have done, I decided to go full 3D. It would have been SOOO much easier if there wasn’t a step out just 3/4” from its head, which is turned aside looking down, so not much room to get into that tight space.
One of the hardest things about carving on furniture details is getting the background level in between legs or leaves and vines. Scrapers are usually the ticket for me, but I needed right and left hand skew shapes. I know I already have those which I made before, but couldn’t find so finally used an old 1/4” Stanley chisel that I had turned into a skew beveled from both sides, then rolled a burr to one side. Then resharpened it, and rolled the edge over to the other side. This worked great, and could get back into some tight undercut spaces.
I’ll post some pics when I get it all done, but I’ve still got to do stained glass for 8 doors, so don’t go holding your breath while you wait! 🤪
