Hi there,
My great-grand-father, and his father, were wood sculptors.
Not like freaking Rodin or such, their art was to decorate furniture, like this:
This is not one of their work, I found it on the web, but that the spirit.
At the passing of his grand-father my father, also very good in wood-crafting which was his main hobby, inherited his tools.
At the passing of my parents - more than 17 years ago - my siblings and I couldn't keep their house nor a bunch of their stuff, including my great-grand-father tools.
We sold the house and stuff but didn't want to sell the tools so we asked to a friend and former colleague of my father, very good in wood-crafting also, if he would keep them as we knew he will take care of them.
He accepted but wanted to add that it was just a deposit, if anyone of us wanted them back in the future he will give them back.
Time passed.
I f... around a lot and forgot about the tools.
Then I started to paint, in 2005 and few times after started to think it would be cool to sculpt, the though of my great-grand-father tools came back a little but I was still very unstable, geographically, and I wouldn't have any place to store or use them.
Time passed again and my wife and I finally settled in Chicago suburbs. I started to try to do bonsai. The living and dead trunks start pilling up and the though of my great-grand-father tools become a carving for them.
Last week my wife and I were in France and took advantage of this trip to bring back the tools, less the ones the friend of my father, who is still alive and working with them, uses regularly.
And here they are together with the mallet (in boxwood) of my great-grand-father:
I sorted them by shape of the blade:
- valley in V (just 5 of those):
- Valley in U (26):
- strait (13):
- and the last group comprise some with a S shape, of duck's neck curve (21):
So that's it.
Those are my new more than 100 years old carving tools, 65 of them.
Back in the family
My great-grand-father, and his father, were wood sculptors.
Not like freaking Rodin or such, their art was to decorate furniture, like this:
This is not one of their work, I found it on the web, but that the spirit.
At the passing of his grand-father my father, also very good in wood-crafting which was his main hobby, inherited his tools.
At the passing of my parents - more than 17 years ago - my siblings and I couldn't keep their house nor a bunch of their stuff, including my great-grand-father tools.
We sold the house and stuff but didn't want to sell the tools so we asked to a friend and former colleague of my father, very good in wood-crafting also, if he would keep them as we knew he will take care of them.
He accepted but wanted to add that it was just a deposit, if anyone of us wanted them back in the future he will give them back.
Time passed.
I f... around a lot and forgot about the tools.
Then I started to paint, in 2005 and few times after started to think it would be cool to sculpt, the though of my great-grand-father tools came back a little but I was still very unstable, geographically, and I wouldn't have any place to store or use them.
Time passed again and my wife and I finally settled in Chicago suburbs. I started to try to do bonsai. The living and dead trunks start pilling up and the though of my great-grand-father tools become a carving for them.
Last week my wife and I were in France and took advantage of this trip to bring back the tools, less the ones the friend of my father, who is still alive and working with them, uses regularly.
And here they are together with the mallet (in boxwood) of my great-grand-father:
I sorted them by shape of the blade:
- valley in V (just 5 of those):
- Valley in U (26):
- strait (13):
- and the last group comprise some with a S shape, of duck's neck curve (21):
So that's it.
Those are my new more than 100 years old carving tools, 65 of them.
Back in the family
