Exploration

I have found that its quite difficult to explain what I do to other people. To most of my acquaintances I am a whittler, a bit of an odd wanderer, a crafty person who enjoys camping. But anyone who has sought to understand me has seen beyond the boy scout titles to a deeper connection. Something fueled by a reverence for natural spaces that I began to experience from an early age. The outdoors was not a place to travel through for my family, but a place to explore and dream in.

My artist father would get lost in the swirling mountain streams and mossy spruce forests on our family hiking trips in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the colors and complexity breathing a life and story of their own. All the while my siblings and I would be playing some game inspired by our enthusiastic and incredibly supportive mother, usually pretending to be adventurers out fighting some imaginary stone troll or stalking some elusive beast. Being casual with our exploration was never enough for her, and consequently never enough for us either. We had to venture deeper than before, reach the summits, and take new trails. As I have grown I have come to understand more clearly that my father wasn’t lost in the details and we weren’t pretending or simply hiking. We all were adventurers, learning and exploring, loving a place and building a connection. Drawing and painting is my father’s way of understanding, and exploring was mine.

So is my exploration of carving and living a wild life. A pursuit of understanding, tracking the elusive simple beauty of life reshaped from living wood and lands. I do not expect to ever say I’ve found it, but would be perfectly content to follow along joyfully in its footsteps.

This space will be a place of such wanderings, delving past the boy scout titles so often thrown at craft and outdoor living to seek something deeper.