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All the artwork
that the students made during the workshop started
out as a section of log. Mike Ives, who does
maintenance for the city of Oberlin, donated a
willow, and Dennis Greive, Oberlin's manager of
grounds, brought over a pine tree. PHOTOGRAPHS
BY LINDA GRASHOFF
What's Fall Break When You Can Learn to Carve Wood by Staying in Oberlin?
Cradling the work in his left
arm, Adam Smith, a senior from Almonte, Ontario, chips at it
with a tool in his right hand. The lower four-fifths of the
piece is a spiral.
Hannah Logan, a first-year student from Atlanta, asks Yates
for some advice.
OCTOBER 27, 1999--Eleven students gave up fall break this semester in favor of an intensive eight-day experience for college credit. The lure was a woodcarving workshop with visiting artist Barbara Yates.
The class "opened a door I had wanted to open for a long time," says Stefan Grube, a first-year student from Oberlin who would have gone out of town for the week if not for the class. Grube says he enjoyed the casual structure of the workshop as well as its intensity, and now has the confidence to continue carving on his own.
"Once you learn wood," says Yates, "you can carve anything [that's carvable], including stone."
Yates says that besides teaching the students how to use woodcarving tools, she teaches confidence to do the work.
"That's what I want to pass on: the confidence." She wants students not to be afraid, not to stand immobile asking "what do I do?"
Although she freely says it took her years to learn what her Oberlin students learned in a week, Yates seems to overlook her pedagogical talent when she describes how she teaches: "I just say 'do this,' 'do that,' and they do it because they trust me."
Some of the students had done some carving before the class, but none had used chain saws.
"This has been such a great week," says Jesse Carew, a senior art major from Brainbridge Island, Washington, one of those with some carving experience. "She came here with four chain saws, and all of a sudden wood became just as malleable as everything else."
"You never think you can do something as cool as you do," says Arish Dastur, a senior from Mumbai, India, who enjoyed the class "totally."
Lauren Maurand, a sophomore from South Hamilton, Massachusetts, discovered the class Monday after it had gotten under way. "I'm glad I did," she says. "I love it. It's really hard work on your hands, though."
Lauren Harkrader, a sophomore from Durham, North Carolina, says she had an idea of what she wanted to do when she signed up for the class, but that the wood dictated the ideas she executed. "My dad turns bowls, and my mom was a carpenter. My dad taught me a lot growing up--but not the chain saw. It makes the work easier and a lot more fun."
Yates encourages her students to "go by what the wood is--find what's in there, locked in the wood."
The public will have a chance to see what the Oberlin students found in the wood when an exhibition of their work--and that of their instructor--goes up in the Art Building's Fisher Gallery Sunday, October 31, at 7:00. The work will be on view until November 10.
Yates will give a presentation Wednesday, November 3, about her work, her own history as an artist, and woodcarving. Those who can't wait that long to learn more about her may wish to look at Yates's web site.
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While Yates watches, Jesse Carew works on a piece he has already titled: Twenty-Two Blocks of Government Cheese. |
Please send comments, questions, and suggestions about Oberlin Online news and feature articles to Linda.Grashoff@oberlin.edu.
