5-2020
I don’t like power tools. A power saw is good to cut tree trunks but that’s it. Otherwise I like to work with ‘hand-powered’ tools. But this is an exception. Although I try to remind myself not to create these double concave, bowl-shaped forms again I end up making them somehow. And depending on how deep the bowl is, I end up cursing myself because I can’t get into the middle of it with the rasp and file – at least no adequately. That results in a bumpy surface on the inside. And this time I succumbed to the need to ‘cheat’. That’s how it feels. But I have to admit: it works! Just to remove the bumps in the middle of it and then it was handiwork again.
Another ‘tool’ I came across by accident. Sewing a bunch of face masks – in times of Covid-19 – I made an additional thinner one against the dust in the workshop. Especially when I’m fine-tuning surfaces with the sandpaper and bowing low over the piece to identify still existing scratches I get a lot of wood dust in my lungs – more, I guess, than is healthy. So the newly learned skill to sew those masks also affected my sculpture work. Otherwise it doesn’t seem to have an impact.
Apart from sweeting the downside of it is, that the mask works both ways. I’m used to blow away the dust from the surface regularly, to see the effects of the grinding. And as I habitually did so with the mask on, that breath kind of caught in my throat and then came out as laughter. Removing the mask every time I want to blow is not really an option. Yes, the world is full of compromise…