Description
Courses and methods for carving, although almost always aimed at sculpture, several have been written; some short, some more detailed, many really excellent and the first thought is that certainly not needed another one. However, this is not meant to be a "course", a "manual" and least of all a collection of examples and projects that are more or less easy to implement. In its simplicity it wants to be more of an invitation to rediscover that manual skill which has accompanied men for millennia, which has created simple, useful, fundamental and extraordinary things, which has gratified and made many generations great.
Carving is perhaps not the most remote human activity, but it is certainly one of the oldest. The use of sharps, first stones or then blades, was decisive for survival through the creation of ancient weapons, tools, for the transmission of cultures with engraving on rocks, for the embellishment of houses with the creation of objects in use even until a few years ago. Over the centuries, this simple and affordable art has never had periods of inactivity, guaranteeing not only work for the artisans but also gratification and company for those who carved sticks and small objects as they followed the grazing animals for a long time.
Even if the impression is of distant times, in reality they are not that much; it is above all in the last few years that manual skills seem to have lost their value, even the most ancient and precious ones.
Technology took their place, certainly of great importance but not to the point of being able to erase thousands of years of history, of which we are the result today.
Our bodies and our minds are not suitable for such strong changes in such a short time, and among the consequences there is also the feeling too often unsatisfied, inadequate, worried or even incomplete without having clear reasons. Regaining our manual skills can be really important, a way to rediscover a serenity dangerously endangered by a consumerist aggression that has even already replaced the word "person" with "consumer". With an activity that requires exercise, attention, skill and even a good dose of humility, we will regain awareness of what we are capable of, we will free our fantasies, we will express our ingenuity and perhaps we will also regain some of that self-confidence lost along the way. From these reflections was born the desire to share a personal journey which, although not without obstacles and disappointments, gave me back much more than what it asked for. Therefore, within these pages, you will not find the usual list of finished projects to copy, but the indications, exercises and basic figures that I have deemed most important for understanding "how", and not "what", to carve. Only in this way will it not be one of the various hobbies of winter Saturdays but a way to rediscover skills and sensitivity which, in the replication of works from the past or in the materialization of fantasies and feelings, allow us to leave a little of ourselves in something that remains .
