Apple wood is a very beautiful wood that is considered to be a hard wood but it is not as hard as cherry, maple or walnut.   Its rich color without distinct grain pattern makes it suitable to carve jewelry pieces.  Since the grain composition is very tight one can carve intricate details without those details crumbling, splitting or breaking at crucial design junctures.  The carvings depicted in the photo were carved between 1978 and 1981.  Each was carved with a knife while those with textured backgrounds were textured with an awl or ice pick kind of tool. The wood came from a friend who cut down an old native apple tree that had been dead for some time so the wood was already dried out sufficiently to begin carving.  These Vintage Carvings of jewelry pieces represent an early carving journey that fulfilled one stage in the development of a carver’s experience.  Subsequent other journeys have been pursued with other carving projects, subjects and styles.  And yet, it is those Vintage Carvings that carry a special place in a carver’s memory of  significant learning during those early days of searching for one’s carving niche.

Much of wood carving is a trial and error experience of learning by doing and trying a new project is never a lost cause for each new challenge is to stretch one’s ability as well as imagination.  It is those days of vintage carving experiences that one builds upon to follow the path on to newer journeys of carving something not yet tried.  The style of carving depicted in these apple wood jewelry pieces came from an earlier time in this carver’s life and has been replaced with other styles yet to be pursued.

“Wood carving is the journey more than the destination,” so the journey is calling to move ahead while at the same time respecting and appreciating the “Vintage Carving” journeys for what they are and then move on, carve on and be the carver of yet to be “Vintage Carvings.”