Birds
My birds are broadly of two kinds. The detailed, coloured birds, usually in lime, are textured with a pyrography tool. Stains are used more often than paints because they slip into the wood without clogging the details I've carved. Also I like to rub the stained areas so that the wood shines through. Overall I aim at a balance between realism and woodiness.
  |
| Redwing (lime, stained) & Little Terns (lime, painted) |
Since most lime doesn't have much grain, undecorated it's not dynamic stuff, and sometimes I need relief from detail. My other kind of bird, therefore, is in plain hardwood or hardwoods - often a bird will comprise more than one wood, and some contain over ninety pieces of up to eight different woods in the wing area. I prefer using gouges and chisels to power tools, because I like listening to the radio.
  |
| Knots (yew) & Quail (various woods) |
Unlike such sculptured birds arising out of the British tradition, the more detailed, coloured birds described earlier represent the American tradition, evolving from decoys. After a year in Michigan, I spent another near Seattle, then a third in Utah, benefiting from the advice and encouragement of American carvers, visiting exhibitions and reading carving magazines. During that year in Utah, I taught poetry at Brigham Young University, and soon after published my sixth collection of poetry. My selected poems, North by South (Seren Books), appeared in 2002 and included poems about birds and bird carving; so my two crafts are interrelated. Here is a view from my workshop:
Quick, A squirrel
launching the glider of its tail
flies up a trunk.
 |
| Grey plover (lime, stained) |
I watch what my hands
make of bandsawn wood.
Not much usually
though hands don't know that,
and anyway even our apple tree
flares only once a year.
Twisting, it can't untie its knot.
But it gives rise to birds, gives rise.
Carved birds too want to live,
blocked wings become wing blur,
heads turn to their shadows.
How to grasp what flies?
Catch, say, the dark star trilling
before it is a skylark.
  |
| Dunlin (lime, painted) & Little Stints (lime, stained) |