Twenty-five years ago, the Wood Bee Carver coined this instructional phrase for woodcarving instruction ~ “Wood carving is Agony and Ecstasy, but Ecstasy always follows the Agony.” This saying helped to explain a common experience this carver had with almost every carving project in its beginning stage of development.  Even after almost fifty years of carving, this experience occurs at the beginning stage of any carving project.  It is an experience of a feeling that the project will not turn out the way it has been imagined and that it will be a mess or a disaster.  This feeling is called the “Agony” stage.  Likewise, once this Agony feeling is accepted for what it is as the “tension of the creative process,” the next stage of “Ecstasy” comes to the forefront as the “creative process opens to the fix” by turning the chaos into a path forward.  The lesson to be learned, is not to give up too soon but to trust the creative process to work with the tension of challenges by allowing imagination to guide towards the “fix” as the carving project develops on its way to it finishing touches.  Ecstasy always follows the Agony, so relax to continue to carve out of chaos.

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