Earlier this spring, right after they cut down all the maple trees on our street, David began barking at someone who was knocking on our front door. It was Shepard, a friend of mine, who pointed to his van when I opened the door. Sticking out the back was the whole trunk of a white cedar tree. “Was I interested?” I said yes and we laid it near the flower beds next to a few pieces of the old maple that I was able to salvage. All summer they dried out together and aged in the sun.
A few days ago Lucy and I bucked it up by hand with a camp saw into manageable pieces and I split a few down and took a look at the grain. It was dry and tight, however it was difficult to get anything of larger size due to the amount of branches that were stemming off the eight inch diameter when the tree died and it was both cut short and cut down. He had taken the time to save it and bring it to me so I definitely wanted to treat it with respect and create something from it.
After some more hard work with the hatchet and some imagination I got out the roughing knife and the detail knife and a smaller saw and some sandpaper and began to find the body of the frog that I’d seen in between a set of tough dark cedar knots. It turned out to be larger than I thought, so instead of lure, I was now thinking I could make something to use under the ice this winter.
Now, when I carve, I do it by hand and I embrace imperfections in the wood, my own imperfections, and ultimately what some people might call mistakes, both in the finished product and if they were to watch me carve, sand, shape and create, along the way. While I love symmetry in design, especially 2-D design, I’ve seen, handled and appreciated the beauty of enough animals, fish, birds and frogs to understand that nature is unique in design. Not to mention looking at my own eyes and facial structure in the mirror. We’re not the same if you fold us in half, our finger prints are each unique, hey, my feet aren’t even the same size.
So…when I carve, if the knife slips, if a knot has to stay, if one side of a fish or mouse or frog or crawfish or dragonfly, duck -- you name it, ends up thinner, thicker, shorter, longer or if a foot or toe is shaped differently, I don’t toss that piece of wood for firewood kindling, I continue on with creating. I cut myself, I have skin in the game, I make a “mistake,” I sand too deep or shallow, I leave carving marks. Each of my creations is one of a kind, and each of them embodies the imagination and kernel of thought that they were born from, but they each are also transformed, and have gone through metamorphosis along the way. Without any of the steps along the way, it would be a different result.
Carving in wood is like living a life. Take away any of our days, good or bad, and we’d look and act different. If you have faith that things are meant to be as they are, even when you can’t explain the difficulty, the hardship, the pain as well as the pleasure and the love and the generosity of life, you can begin to understand what I’m describing. Sure, on one hand, it’s just a fishing decoy, a wood carving, a piece of functional folk art, but on the other, scarred hand, couldn’t it be more than a little bit more?
I found the right old tobacco tin for the back legs and I carved out the lead cavity for the belly and to finish shaping the legs (which are not the same but do look like a real frog’s swimming motion) I grabbed vintage tin snips, an old metal shaping hammer and a special tool from another friend. To hammer the edges of the snipped legs and toes I placed them against a tiny green anvil that I got from Henry Held. It is perfect for this size detail work and it reminds me of him when I work with it.
I’m not done painting yet, but the frog is primed. I’m looking forward to a peaceful afternoon in the backyard to bring it back to life. All summer it lay dormant and was just buried in a few inches of a dead tree. Just think of the potential that those slow and discouraging parts of our own lives might have. We’ve all got some rough edges, some knots and imperfections. Those are the things that make us who we are, just as much as the bright and shiny parts. One of the best parts is that we have friends to help us be our best selves along the way.
