Top of the Food Chain

[woodcarver55555]

Great idea and a great carving. I love idea of one thing, after another trying to eat one another. I can also tell you that boa's have teeth, slanted backward. I friend has owned a pet shop for over 25 years. Several years ago he asked me to help move a large boa( over 14 feet) back to the main store. Some how he get a mouth full of ceder shavings and was kind of gagging.We were picking them out( he was very tame) and I got my finger hung on one of his teeth. Boy are they sharp. I think the teeth look great. The mouse may need a prozax or something before it's all over.

[Mottles]

Well, this is really cool! Maybe instead of a snake it could be a dragon!
Kathy

[Thomp]

Great execution of the project,.
if its the handle its done , might i suggest to put scales down the cane... liking to a petrified snake,,,,

[whitecree]

I don't know what your defintion of "good" is, but you did an excellent job!

Every carver needs an elf standing behind her/him. The elf knows only when something looks good, and when he sees something looking good, he whaps you over the head with a rubber mallet, and hollers "STOP!"

[Thor]

Wonderful Susan! I love the idea and the execution. I don't know why you want to call it folk art except maybe when you market a pattern, but it certainly is no measure of the final piece all worked up. Great stick topper.
Also, great to have you back on the forum again.

Thor

[Irish]

Thanks guys!

Thor,
Folk art, at least in cane carving, is a style where you use only those lines and cuts that are absolutely necessary to create the impression of what you are carving.

So eyes are simple circles, rooster's don't have wings but they do have one big curved feather for the tail and their comb, fish scales are a v-gouge grid pattern, toad's don't have warts but they do have huge toes and big mouths ... It's Keep it Super Simple, the KISS theory, to the extreme.

An art carved snake cane will have neatly placed scales, diamond patterns, a tail rattle and fangs. A folk art snake usually is nothing more than a smooth rope body with two beady little eyes - no scales, no fangs, no tail rattle and sometimes it seems they don't even have heads just these two eyes at the top of the body - only the two elements that are needed to identify the animal as a snake.

That's where my problem with folk art comes in ... I just have this awful urge to get in there and carve more details, smooth out the gouge and chisel strokes, fuss it up.

If you want a beautiful book for your library on antique canes find:

American Folk Art Canes, Personal Sculptures, by George H. Meyer,Sandringham Press, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in association with Museum of American Folk Art, New York, copyrighted in 1992, ISBN 0-295-97200-9

Susan

[Dylan]

What a great idea and well done to.

Dylan

[Thor]

That's a pretty clear description of woodcarvings in a folk art style. I will look up the book. It sounds like a good one.
Susan, do you feel like the description of "folk art" helps when marketing woodcarvings? I'm really curious. Even though I work in and around art in a contemporary gallery everyday, I also display folk art and know how there are some collectors who are interested in nothing else. I don't differenciate between contemporary, folk or primitive with a bold line so that it all has a more universal appeal.
For instance. I can't imagine your stick topper having less detail based on seeing some of your other carvings. It is very distinctively "yours". As a collector myself, I like being able to recognize the style of a particular artist.
I mean no offense. I get into conversations about folk art definitions occasionally and I'm always curious how the terminology is used by different artists.
Thor

[Irish]

Thor,

I do think it is important especially from a sales and marketing approach. We, Mike and I, have found that people want some story, some special tale they can tell that goes with the art they buy. That story can be "I have discovered this new artist" or "they only use hand tools and work from found wood" or "they have a distinctive folk art/impressionistic/realistic style of carving."

Example, someone has posted in the Off Topics area 101 reasons to carry a cane/walking stick. Well, to me one of the biggest reasons is to have a conversation piece, something I think is special and that I can "tell you" all about it or the artist or the style.

So to mark something in a gallery as "Folk Art" or by a Folk Art Carver is a way to start the selling conversation and to give the buyer their story that they can then pass on ... "Hey, see what I just got, it's a folk art cane by this carver that is totally self-taught! " sort of thing.

Just my experience.

Susan