Adie Vanessa Offiong
10 January 2009
The art of carving is an intricate, interesting one. Artxtra paid a visit to the Abuja Art Village to have a first-hand experience. Plateau State-born Christopher Dakut who has been in the business for over twenty years, gave us insight.
Benin City and Awka have been identified as centres of wood-carving, this notwithstanding, wood carvers have flourished in almost every city of Nigeria for a long time now. Abuja is one of such cities.
A variety of wood could be used in carving depending on what item is to be carved. For Abuja wood carvers, "we use mahogany, iron wood, ebony which are all hard wood and any soft wood. All these are got here in Abuja except ebony which we have to order from the south, particularly Benin City because it is a mangrove plant."
Buying these woods are not as cheap as they are abundant. "A piece of mahogany which comes in timber sizes of lets say 2x12 costs about N1, 800 a piece. This can only make you one stand size of animal carving. It is even worse in the rainy season when trucks cannot go to the swampy areas to fell trees. They cost an arm and a leg then."
A good price makes up for the wood purchase and the amount of labour that goes into carving the items. "The smallest pieces that could serve as table top figurines cost between N1, 000 and N2, 000 depending on how well my customer can bargain. The human sized ones and those half these size go from about N20, 000 and above."
These notwithstanding there are always customers purchasing one item or the other for personal use or as gifts.
Most of them prefer works carved out of strong wood because they are more durable as a customer Mr. Henry Ikedia and his friends pointed out. "Most times when we come to buy works we prefer to buy the ones made from mahogany or ebony because they are heavier and survive harsh weather conditions. We used to buy works made out of the soft wood because they were lighter and easier to travel with. But I discovered that after a while termites eat into them or they begin to crack here and there."
"No matter how schooled a person is in wood carving, if you do not have a niche or talent for it there is no way you can be good at it," says Christopher Dakut. He went on to explain the process of wood carving to bring about the various items in their finished form.
Step 1: For a fresh design a sketch is made on paper. For an old one the sketch could be done directly on the piece of wood.
Step 2: Carve out and define the form using a chisel.
Step 3: Using a rasp, remove chisel marks.
Step 4: Using a scrapper, scrap to remove roughness on surface caused by the rasp.
Step 5: Using rough sandpaper smoothen the surface and finish off using a smoth sandpaper.
Step 6: Fill up holes and wounds created in the work process.
Step 7: Polish using vanish.
Step 8: Apply a glossy polish using a brush and leave out to dry. This will cause it to practically glitter and it is ready for display. The best result is achieved on a sunny day.
To cut cost some carvers use shoe polish. But in this case kerosene or petrol has to be applied on the object. It is then smoothened with sandpaper before the polish is applied and the item brushed up thoroughly afterwards.
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