The White Rose

[mateo]

Its me again, with another tagua nut carving. Yes I know this is a woodcarving forum. Anyway here's my take on a white rose. Carved in relief, in vegetable ivory. I hope all of my fellow carvers had a great independence day. It was abnormally cool and rainy here in west central Indiana. Didn't stop the carving train from rolling along though. Thanks for looking!

[doris]

hi mateo, i like see all carvings, no matter what material, and you carve with edge toos like many of us do carve wood,,,so, i guess, the only difference might be that grain does not play a role for you to consider (but i am not sure, since even in stone carving there is something like grain one has to obey to if the stone sould not crack)...
a nice little carving, and a nice gift... what is vegetable ivory (maybe is only my weak english that i don´t know ?)

[Dan Wegiel]

Beautiful rose mateo. There seems to be a lot of talent here in the good old Hoosier state, what city are you from?

Dan

[Nomad]

I bet your grandmother loved that!

I clicked on your link and saw some of the carvings you have on your blog. Gorgeous and really unique.

BTW, I was born and raised in Indiana. More on the northeast side by Fort Wayne. West central Indiana has some nice country.

I'm a Michigander now.

I am curious about those Tagua nuts. How do you keep them from drying out or is that not a problem?

[mateo]

Hey Doris, I don't know who coined the term vegetable ivory but it is kind of clever. "save the elephants use vegetable ivory!"

One Yarina palm tree, in one year, produces as much "ivory" as a set of elephant tusk.

Dan, I live in the country about 50 miles west of Indy. Equal distance between Greencastle and Crawfordsville. During the winter I migrate to Peru where there is an abundance of tagua and tropical hardwood to be carved.

Nomad you can't keep them from drying out. The longer they sit around the harder they get. The Indians of the rainforest eat them when they are ripe. They don't have much flavor just kind of a wet little ball of gelatin. As they age they begin to turn harder and lose their transparency turning white and harder and harder and harder.

You know when to strop your blade during a wood carving when it stops slicing and starts crushing the grain, right? Well, with carving tagua it stops slicing and starts chipping. I strop my blades often.

Thanks for the nice comments and thanks for checking out my blog, I appreciate the interest.

[Thor]

Beautiful work as usual Mateo. I have never heard that much information on the tagua nuts either. Thanks for that.

I always love to see what you're up to.
Christina

[Ron T]

Hi Mateo,

Always nice to see your tagua carvings. This one is very nice, also.

[Robert Cahill]

I like the rose and your other carvings you do excellent work. Not sure I have the patience for that
I read once that before plastic they made buttons and such from the tagua nut and that is where the name vegetable ivory originated.

[torpidhummer]

Mateo! You never seize to amaze, your talent, even though you kept it hidden from us is awesome. Yes after traveling through Indiana last week it was pretty wet. I'll bet you that the "Big Carver in the Sky" is having fun in how he produces so much rain back in the Middle West and keeps us dry in California.
Thanks for sharing with with your carvings and Blog.
Vaya Con Dios mi amigo.

Oscar

[Gulf Coast Handyman]

Excellent work as usual Mateo, thanks for sharing.

Dave