The old man had worked wood for more years than I had been alive. His old wood shop had served as the meeting place for many informal meetings of his fraternal brothers. The solitude there allowed him to create numerous beautiful creations from exotic woods. The exotic hardwoods found new life as he turned them into pens, jewelry boxes and gavels for his friends.
It was to choose a gavel that I had to gone to his home that day. He had made many different ones, some made entirely from walnut and rosewood, others mahogany and oak, still more had been crafted from combinations of woods glued together and then pressed to make a single form. I ultimately chose a gavel that had been well crafted through hours of turning on a lath. It was beautiful and still serves its function well, ringing chaos to order.
As a child, my first experience with exotic hardwoods belonged to a group of carved statues my father's friend had brought as a gift from Israel. Carved from olive wood, the hardness of the wood showed the care given in carving the figures. One of the figures became a sad figure as her head split open, a reminder of what happens when an artist rushes their work or does not choose their wood with care before carving. I always thought of that little figurine when I saw the Venus de Milo, both somehow crippled by a flaw in the plan of their creator.
Later I would be privileged to discover that olive wood is one of the hardest woods in the world and the figures made from the pruned limbs are sought after and prized, at least in some circles. It has become more common to have hardwood sculptures as art pieces. I bought an ebony sculpture from a man from Togo. The color of the wood matched his skin, but both seemed equally warm and glowing. The ebony figure was completely different in style than the olive figurines of my youth, though both were crafted from exotic hardwoods.
With the ability to purchase exotic woods on-line, it has become easier to obtain hardwoods for instrument making, sculpting and carving. Offering a wide variety in different types of woods gives artists the ability to work multiple types of woods they may never see growing in a forest. Knowing that my little sculptures were made in the countries their forests grew in somehow makes them more special to me.
Author Resource:
Cook Woods (http://www.cookwoods.com/) specializing in exotic hardwoods of the World. Art Gib is a freelance writer.
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