May Started Off With A Crash!

May Day, May 1st, has been celebrated around the world many different ways. Ancient Romans had their Flora, celebrating the goddess of flowers; pre-Christian Germanic countries had their Walpurgis Night; Scotland had the Beltane Fire Festival, and Ireland had their similar Feast of Bealtaine. (Both countries burned huge bonfires in the evening of May 1st.) All these festivals celebrated the ending of winter and fertility and rebirth of spring. Several of these ancient versions of May Day also involved the traditional fertility rite of the May Pole dance. Similar, tamer versions are still around even in the United States.

Since the labor and Communist movements of the 20th century, May Day has become more and more a celebration known as International Workers Day or Labour Day. In Russia, during the Cold War, May Day celebrations included a huge parade in Red Square showing off their military might. Even the nature-based Bealtaine celebration in Ireland became a day of protest, often violent. And… that brings me to our Santa Cruz May Day riot.

Our little beach/college town had its own small gathering for workers’  rights and fair labor practices. However, a young militant group used the gathering as a rallying point for their “fight against the money-hungry, greedy businessmen”… etc., and began marching down our main street. A few began painting graffiti slogans on walls, then threw and broke bottles of paint on walls and windows, then threw rocks through the windows. A few more joined in, and when it was over, 15-20 buildings were damaged. Most businesses hit were local-family-owned stores, a couple that can barely afford to stay open. Some of the windows broken were  in the new and vacant Rittenhouse Building where the Santa Cruz Woodworkers (of which I’m a member) had our exhibits in the windows. Several of our wood pieces were damaged.  The picture is of the Rittenhouse building’s owner gazing at the rock that came through one of the windows and hit some of our art work.

Oh… enough of the downer news.

Meanwhile, back in the Studio…

For a few months now I’ve been working on a dulcimer commission. I’m happy to say that the carving is done and I’ve  been assembling the pieces. I’m at a point now where I’ll be doing several days of sanding before I can put the last pieces on and finish it up. It has cherry sides and a book-matched cherry back and a salvaged redwood top. “Avery” is looking good.

Last week I got another commission. It’s a smaller one, but it will be as fun to carve as “Avery” was. This commission is for five spoons made from boxwood my client sent from Maryland. Boxwood (Buxus sempervirens) , known also as common box or European box, is a shrub that has very dense white-to-yellow wood. It can grow like a tree up to around 25 feet high and have a trunk 8-10 inches in diameter. Old box hedges in England grew quite large over 100+ years, but are becoming scarce as they’ve  been cut for development or for their wood. Box Hill, Surrey, in England is known for it’s stand of natural, wild box “trees”.  Box was brought to the United States  and can still be seen used as short hedges lining yards and walkways.

I’ve started roughing out the spoons and letting the wood dry a little (it’s still fairly green). The boxwood spoons are the upper left group in the photo. I’ve also roughed out quite a few regular spoons and spurtles. After last year’s shows, I nearly sold out all my spoon stock. Time to replenish.

Another big carving project going on is my chess set. I just finished the rooks and the kings, and I’m now working on the queens. Only eight more to go after that.

 

Progress on the furniture pieces and portative organ has slowed down, at least until I finish my commissions. And in my front workshop, I’m still working on a zither restoration. It’s a small job, and I’m getting it done little by little. With everything I have to work on, I’m finding there’s just not enough hours in the day to do it all. My hands get sore and my eyes get hazy. (Age???)

Anyway… onward through the fog.

A Lot of Carving, A Lot of Wood

Rain, sun, rain, sun, and now more rain. The first “official” month of Spring has been rather odd this year for the Monterey Bay area. We’ve had several very cold rain storms that left a little snow in the mountains here and in the Sierras, and some very nice warm weather that brought everyone out to the beaches. Last night, the rains started again. The big problem with rain is that the dampness can rust my power tools that have cast-iron tops, like my table saw. Usually, once a year in the Spring, I clean the tops and apply a couple of coats of paste wax. The wax not only protects the tops for the next year, but makes any sliding accessories (and wood) glide effortlessly through the blades or sanders.

But the rains don’t stop me from working, and a lot is going on in my studio and elsewhere.

First, elsewhere…

This week a gallery show opened up in the Atrium Gallery at 600 Townsend, San Francisco. It’s the Baulines Craft Guild Spring Showcase, called On The Make. It was juried by Julie Muniz, Assistant Curator at the Oakland Museum of California. I was fortunate to have two pieces accepted, Pianoforte “London Bridge”, and Courting Dulcimer “The Tie That Binds”. One is on the 600 Townsend web site at http://www.600townsend.com/artexhibit.htm . The show runs from April 19th to June 10th. A reception is Thursday, April 22, from 5:30 to 7:30.

And… I still have a piece on exhibit at the Rittenhouse Building in downtown Santa Cruz.

In the Studio…

Yes, I am doing a lot of carving right now. The next sixteen chess pieces are all roughed out and ready for the more tedious detail  carving. All the pawns are done and waiting for their leaders on my custom chess board. I’m really pleased how they’re turning out.

I have two stools in process right now. There’s another medieval 3-legged stool and a medieval trestle stool. Both of them will have carvings on them.

Spoons and spurtles have been so popular this last 6 to 8 months  that I sold out all I made last summer. A few weeks ago I roughed out twenty more.

I’ve also revisited my Chapter House Portative Organ. I still need  to carve the pipe braces and a couple of decorative heads here  and there.

My big project right now is a commissioned Mountain dulcimer. The head carving is a highly detailed figure of the future owner’s son. I’m still working on the features, and it is getting to look more and more like the photos I use as a reference. I only work on it an hour or two at a time so I don’t over carve any of it. I strive to be as accurate as possible on a carved “portrait”. I keep checking the areas needing work and only work on that portion the next time I sit down to carve. When I carve heads that are from my imagination and not from photos, I’ll carve for hours until a character emerges from the wood. Those usually take around four or five hours to complete. Accurate portraits can take around eight to twelve hours, one or two hours at a time. At least the Mountain dulcimer body is all ready for assembly as soon as I finish carving the “portrait”.

More Wood…

A recent friend, who also works with my wife occasionally, lives on property in South Dakota. He had a black walnut tree that died and was cut down. He sent me two logs, around 24 inches long, that I ripped into boards last week. The wood has some beautiful figuring in it. I now have to let it dry for a year or two before being able to use it.  Earlier this year I went to my local lumber yard during their annual inventory reduction sale and picked up some nice white oak for the medieval furniture I’m working on. Beside working on the trestle stool, I’m getting ready to cut more oak for what’s known as a box trestle table. It’s a late Medieval or early Renaissance table (1400-1600) that has a storage box under the lid. It’s not a big table, but the box probably held plates and/or utensils for dining. Mine will be set up as more of a “pub” game table of that period.

And…

Another commission is heading my way. Soon I should be receiving some boxwood from a customer I met when I exhibited at the American Craft Council Show in Baltimore a few years ago. I’ll be carving five spoons from her boxwood. Boxwood is a very hard, dense, yellow-to-cream-colored wood often used in the past for wind instruments, goblets, plates, and for decoration. The old box hedges in England had large trunks are not that plentiful anymore, and I understand some are even considered historical and can’t be cut for its wood. Most that are cut for their wood nowadays are newer hedges and relatively small, but large enough for spoon carvings. Boxwood purchased at lumberyards is usually from Turkey and other eastern Mediterranean countries. It’s not the same variety of boxwood as that in England and is much whiter in color.

Also, in for restoration is another Schwarzer zither. This one has a  serial number, 9667, which shows it was made in 1909. It shows evidence that it was played a lot, and has a name scratched in the back that might be the first owner: Anna (or Ann A.) Eringer. It’s in pretty good shape, and really only need some cleaning, polishing, and new strings.

For now, I thinks that’s enough. Enough work, and enough rambling on…

Onward, through the fog… uh, rain.