← to the first post about this project
Today was a pretty windy day. I was glad everything was still standing when I arrived this morning. The project at the South Portal meanwhile steadily goes on; I am now busy carving a capital (both the stone masonry and sculpture work) which will be placed somewhere on the left outside of the portal. Currently I've arrived at carving the leaf motif. …Read the whole article…
The above statement is attributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti, and after that remark about that nose it must be the statement I heard the most often. Why people keep saying that is beyond me. It's actually never been funny. Many visitors might feel compelled to say anything meaningful or funny if they are confronted with sculptors. Sometimes it is not all that easy to imagine how someone makes a sculpture. …Read the whole article…
The most asked question by visitors to a sculptor's workshop is the next: 'And what if you're nearly finished, and you accidentally hit that nose and it comes off…?’ (or that hand, or finger, or little protruding part, and so on). My colleagues and I have heard that question so many times, that sometimes we got a bit fed up with that. Then we said with a dead serious face: …Read the whole article…
In 1987/1988 I traveled for three months in Ecuador. It was a journey that would change my life, because after having experienced all kinds of difficulties I came into contact with woodcarving.
I found myself in particularly difficult circumstances, without money and passport, and because of that wasn't allowed to leave the capital Quito. But with borrowed money, I learned Spanish, and started to travel. That way, I arrived in the village of San Antonio de Ibarra, of which I had heard there lived and worked lots of wood carvers. For me it was the land of plenty! …Read the whole article…