all or nothing

Every summer, I head to Hendersonville, NC to spend time with members of my family ranging from tiny toddlers to an aging Aunt. It’s also where I first fell in love with wood carving. I dedicated myself to various spoons and spatulas mainly. Over the last five years, I began carving on my own outside of the confines of this once a year ritual and experienced different kinds of wood, far less ideal blanks, trying to make something out of scrap wood, live wood from a coworker, on and on. This year, before the scheduled crafting time could begin, I ran into a fellow wood carving lover who casually remarked, “Every year, I try to learn a new skill while I’m here.” We’re lucky to have access to an instructor who has been coming here to teach for 19 years and, in all of the years he’s taught me, it never occurred to me to do that. Add in all of the tools he brings and the great blanks he provided with the softest wood, it’s a learning paradise. Instead of being lulled into complacency by the various spoons and spatula blanks he had for us, I grabbed a different kind of piece. I can’t exactly carve something like this with the tools I have with me, partially because I’m a stubborn minimalist who refuses to buy more tools and partially because he created such an easy blank to work from that would be a pain to recreate. In any case, I went for it and loved carving this leaf bowl for my partner.

At the end, the instructor and I stared at it trying to decide whether I should sand it smooth in the bowl or leave it be. I was going to lightly sand it and keep it mostly rough but he admonished me, “Either do it or don’t”. All or nothing. My kind of guy. I left it alone and it was the right call.