Busacca Gallery

Three little wooden ship folk art whittlings of balls-in-cages Here is three carvings probably made by the same hand. They all have little balls within there cages. There is a lot of personality in the whittling. It is carved from a light colored wood, likely pine. The condition is excellent, and it is old and oxidized. This artist through trial and error he learned the dos and don'ts of wood carving and whittling wood. The most common comments I receive when I show these old carved ball-in-cages. Is “How did they get that ball in there?” Whittling a sharp point on a stick can be very satisfying and I think it appeals to an instinct that extends back to an ancient tool-making past when a sharp stick may have been critical for survival. In the past you learned to work with your hands early on because there was just a lot of work to go around in everyday life, the carving skill was needed for survival.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_carving

Wood carving is a form of working wood by means of a cutting tool held in the hand (this may be a power tool), resulting in a wooden figure or figurine (this may be abstract in nature) or in the sculptural ornamentation of a wooden object. The phrase may also refer to the finished product, from individual sculptures, to hand-worked mouldings composing part of a tracery. Some of the finest extant examples of early wood carving are from the Middle Ages in Italy and France,[citation needed] where the typical themes of that era were Christian iconography. In England many complete examples remain from the 16th and 17th century, where oak was the preferred medium. Figural carving seems to have been widespread. The carving to represent one's god in a tangible form finds expression in numberless ways. The early carver, and, for that matter, the native of the present day, has found a difficulty in giving expression to the eye, and at times has evaded it by inlaying this feature with colored material.