There’s a shocking amount of work that goes into everything we have.
I chose this idea because it’s easy to forget just how much time and effort is put into every processed good. I wanted to show the difficult in creating even something simple like a wood carving, let alone something more complicated and useful as many of the items in a home. It’s humbling to know just how many hours of other people’s effort any american can purchase without much thought. As for if I was successful, well I’m not finished with my carving after 4 hours of work because I wanted to do everything by hand. My choice to create this piece with exclusively hand tools is to experience the difficulty than the vast majority of people would experience in creating a wood carving.
If I create another carving in the future I wouldn’t change anything, the simplicity of working with hand tools for a few hours to make something I enjoy is a fun experience for me. Carving for me is not about the quantity or even the quality of something I make but rather the experience of creating.
Another shocking Idea that I would be highly interested in trying is to create a metal carving out of raw ore and forging down into something usable. It would be even more shocking because metalworking is exponentially more difficult to learn and perform than woodworking. Undoubtedly, I would spend a week on one small project for a metal object as opposed to a few hours for a wooden piece.
Zack’s art blog 