In doing, clarity will come

I`m really pleased to have incorporated the hard-won birch trunk with the ruminating and handless elm horseman figure (who, in setting forth, achieves some level of insight on his travels ). There`s a bigger piece in this but in the meantime I like that there is a birch bench in the hallway upon which laces can be tied, velcro strapped.

 I am pleased that serendipidy brought these two wooden elements together. I`m also aware that my holiday days will end tomorrow and with them, some of the capacity to fashion, dwell on and play with these objects and symbols.

 

Running Horse

The ears went; lobbed off more or less accidently but with an awareness that there was a growing touch of rat or pig about them. This irrevocable earlessness left me scunnered, so I left the woodblock and went away to pick up my daughter at the yard where I could stare at Fudge and Frankie - ruminate on how their ears met their heads, the sheer length and flexibility of them.   Hacking away again, there  now developed a similarity to Janosch`s Hase mit die schnellen schuen, but I think the wooden horse`s ears, pinned back in its running and leaping, protectively overlaying the girl`s head, will "work". I don`t mind if it doesn`t resemble a horse too much (and no doubt ears pinned back like this on a real beast signify extreme distress.....) The girl will be facing roughly forwards; straining  towards the action - hands not grasping the neck, but held outstretched on either side, giving her horse its freedom.

Oak Wood

I tried in vain to retrieve the piece of wood I cut a few months back. It is now more tightly wedged than ever, despite (or because of) my best efforts with a long improvised lever. Down again in the broadleaf woodland by the back road, tired,  I stumbled upon a hefty chunk of oak, remnant of chainsaw harvesting, and, walking around the block, wondered if this might do.

Now, as I take advantage of a stretch of free days, I wonder why I don`t have a chainsaw, because hacking out lumps of wood to get at any shape is very time-consuming. But  a girl on a horse is emerging, slowly. I think of Marino Marini`s horses and riders,  of Marc Chagall`s dream paintings, and of my daughter. 

Slowly emerging

Marc Chagall

Forest Dweller

The Bold Burn runs up parallel with the logging road a mile and, at the junction, swerves left  into marshy grassland before rising away steeply , taking its burbling with it.
Drawing breath after running  the rise I stood at the quiet junction this afternoon, staring  into a copse of spruce trees there, that wedge between the burn and the forest road. Unusually on Forestry land these are mature spruce, tall and strong. I climbed down into the copse`s heart and all was dark and silent, but for the Bold burn murmuring, the muffling floor fifty years of soft brown needles. I studied the thick trees` down-sloping branches and mapped a climb in my head. Abandoning this my eye then caught right angles in amongst the tangled diagonals; at seven feet  someone had placed a slim pole-like  branch between two trees and, rising from the needle carpet to meet it in the middle was a twenty feet long sapling trunk, stripped of branches. Together they formed a fragile, rising cross. Looking down I saw the stone circle of a camp fire, blackened with burnt branches and pine cones. Weeks, months old. Trying to make sense I envisaged a forest dweller lying flat, staring up at the looming, falling cross in some solitary rapture or torment. (Why did I think that ?)  And then, as though an archaeologist piecing together a (remarkably well preserved)  find, I saw flat stone rows either side that would have  held  waterproof sheeting down, and I heard again the burn only a few metres away; close-by for washing. But for the intruding forest road above, a traveller had created a perfect bivouac.   In my mind`s eye I saw them at night, head protruding from under their open canopy, warmed by a resinous fire, hearing owls hoot, foxes bark and being lulled to sleep by the constant  reassuring chatter of the burn.

Seize the Day

In my home reside a number of odd wooden figures; some of these have birds perched atop their heads; as though both man and beast share souls.  They stand as testimony to an earlier, less busy phase of my life. 

Today, Robin held his hands aloft for a reluctant five minutes while I sketched. Then I went to the birch trunk, hefted its bulk upright and, after much rumination, painted brush strokes for shoulders and forearms.

Then I sat astride the log and, with chisel and mallet, embarked, finally, upon the figure

Woodpecker

I was running up the long, long track towards the Bold Burn`s source.The larch are in leaf. Spring green overwhelming the orange-pink like a tide coming in.  I stopped and watched a coal tit. It was halfway through its long, hot day`s urgent flitting, from sunrise to set, bush to copse, calling for a mate. One shrill note samba. In my ignorance I seemed to match a goldfinch  with a bright orange chaffinch, or were they just friends ?  Across from the stretching diagonal rise, on the valley`s far, echoing side I heard a woodpecker`s burst , like gentle machinegun fire. How many taps: 10 or 20 ? too fast to count. This bird was carving more wood than I was, came the thought. Robin and I had chipped off the prone Birch log`s bark, revealing chicken breast wood - but I still haven`t carved; too constipated with ideas; unwilling to expend the energy until guaranteed a good outcome...  Running again, I reached the top bend and drank from the burn, then moved on through shade into pinewood and boulders, startling a dark brown roe deer 50 metres ahead. 

And as I loped along images came and went like card houses rising and falling, and I realised I need to get out the chisels and just carve and saw and chip, because it`ll be in the doing that a shape will start to form; I can see it in the other curious, finished  figures around my house - why not this time around ?
But there will be a figure, hands held high , holding a creature (or being a wild creature`s perch). He`ll be running (or will have the legs of a deer), or he`ll be standing still (or dancing); rapt; attention focused on the small siskin sitting on his palms, that he`s returning to the safety of a tree branch. Though wood, he`ll have the plaster-freshness of a Marino Marini sculpture. Saturday`s the day to begin.

Seasoning wood

I`d found my seasoned log for carving; in amongst a long cluttered line of storm-damaged beech and birch trees.
I set to with Robin`s hand saw and, adapting to the slow rhythm; the ache growing in my arms, I sought diversion in my surroundings. I was sawing in a scene reminiscent of a dormant Samuel Palmer pen and ink drawing. Below me, deep-sided broadleaf-clad hills converged on a trickling brook running hidden and steeply down to the back road. Though the February sun warmed northern hills over the river, those around me were cast in shade.

Fine, pale green sawdust sprang from the beech`s gash. I`d misjudged; too green to carve yet, I surmised, (and probably too heavy to heft down the hill; full as it still was with sap). However, I was committed and sawed laboriously and, cutting finally  through the lower edge, the long, heavy trunk`s two parts slyly clenched  shut on my blade.
I managed in the end  to jiggle and slide the saw loose. Before choosing where to make the second cut I stood and stretched my legs and back. I spied an older, much deader birch trunk and knew it to be good firewood; the silver bark had uncurled itself and the round cross-section showed pale as dry straw. 
I cut a dozen four-foot lengths and lobbed them over by a tree base. They resounded off each other like ancient xylophone music.
Returning to the beech trunk I imagined the length my envisaged  figure would need, and resumed  labours.
Anticipating another weight shift I improvised wedges and supports from supple larch branches and cut pine boles. But the severed section, once freed, stuck fast. Irrevocably this time; there was no freeing it. Liberated, gravity clung it more tightly.
Again I slid and cajoled my saw loose and then, because there was nothing else for it,  cast around philosophically for another likely log. This first attempt could wait a year, by which time the section will have seasoned and loosened.
Close by, a birch tree had been struck horizontal by winds, roots to top, a couple of winter`s ago I judged. Unlike the beech, it lay over other felled trees. I roughly calculated how the constituent parts of its great weight  would lean and fall once  severed and, encouraged,  began sawing.
Success this time ! I hefted the 5 and a half foot section free and slowly transported it end over end, over heavy end, to the path`s head from where I rolled it in fan-like bursts down the trail, ( it`s circumferences being unequal).
Like a freshly caught and killed fish the birch`s beautiful white silver bark dulled in the mud. My resolve to sculpt again was sorely tried as my back strained again and again to daisy more than my own body weight towards the car.
But now I`ve found my seasoned log for carving. It lies waiting under the shed`s new awning.