Wood Carving

Wood Carving

Wood Carvings: Rustic Art For Your Home

The phrase "wood carvings" can refer to any object carved from a piece of wood. Carving is one of the oldest and most venerated art forms, with surviving examples of portraits, jewelry boxes, house signs, and sculpture dating back to Ancient Egypt. Typically wood carvings are pieces of home decor, such as picture frames, home signs, furniture, or ornamental pieces. Today, large-scale wood carvings are rare and extremely valuable.

While the term "carving" is most often used in reference to hand tools, it's also possible for craftsmen to use various power tools and even machines in carving their chosen design. Homemade furniture, for example, could be considered wood carvings if each piece were produced on a small scale, unique, and included ornamentation or hand-detailed work. Personalized house signs and ornamental pieces involving a lot of detail are considered "carvings" if their production required detail work done by hand.

Memories of Days Gone By

Wood carvings are often evocative of the outdoors, tradition, and culture. In America, most decorative wood carvings involve Native Americans, cowboys, animals common to the forests and streams of North America, and fairies or "tree spirits". On carved house signs it's common to see a small hand-tinted graphic of a peaceful forest scene, even if the owner of the home in question only knows the smell of pine trees from his car's air freshener. The material itself is a reminder of our modern disconnection from nature, and purchasing wood carvings often makes people feel a bit more connected to the natural world around them.

Next to house number signs, the most common types of wood carvings are animal forms. In days past these would have served as children's toys, but today they're often mounted on the wall or displayed on a shelf. The same graphic and sculptural motifs appear on house signs: fish, birds (especially eagles, hawks, ducks, and roosters), lizards, scorpions, dogs, horses, deer, bears, elephants, and dragons.

Bringing Nature Home

Wood can be presented in almost any manner. On wooden home signs, in particular, a more rustic appearance is common; the bark of the tree trunk might still be visible around the edges of the signs, or in some cases the house signs are the home address painstakingly carved into a branch or a log. On the other end of the spectrum, polished and varnished redwood house signs have been an expensive and impressive way to announce one's home or business for decades. The wood on house signs and other crafts can be polished, painted, or left plain; laden with intricate detail, or smooth; sanded, rough, or with a chiseled pattern. It's an extraordinarily adaptable and beautiful medium.

Although the presence of wood in homes is becoming less commonplace, you can invite a little bit of nature into your house by visiting a craft expo or flea market. Carving is still a favorite hobby of many, and the skill displayed by some carvers is truly amazing. If you're not the type to invest in trinkets for your home, consider purchasing one of the functional, customizable, and impressive house signs. Your visitors and guests will recognize your support for artistry, traditional values, and nature's beauty.