Category: Carving the Acanthus

In addition to her expert instruction on carving a classical leaf motif, in”Carving the Acanthus Leaf,” author Mary May also shares stories from her life, such as the one excerpted below.

The book is a deep exploration into the iconic acanthus leaf, which has been a cornerstone of Western ornamentation for thousands of years. May, a professional carver and instructor, covers carving tools and sharpening with the efficiency of someone who has taught for years. Then she plunges the reader directly into the work.

It begins with a simple leaf that requires just a few tools. The book then progresses through 13 variations of leaves up to the highly ornate Renaissance and Rococo forms. Each lesson builds on the earlier ones as the complexity slowly increases.

– Fitz

Being a student of woodcarving is not at all like being in a school program where there is a “final exam” at the end of the term to determine passage into the next level. My first woodcarving teacher, Konstantinos Papadakis, is a true master carver who specializes in the Byzantine style of woodcarving, one of the defining features of the beautifully ornate interiors of traditional Greek Orthodox churches. Stepping into the foyer of one of these churches, you are often greeted with an intricately carved “icon stand,” created to hold a vibrant painting of a venerated saint. Walking into the main sanctuary, you will be amazed by the remarkably detailed altar screens covered on every surface with carved leaves, vines and symbols of the Christian faith.

On one side of the altar will be a beautifully carved wooden structure called an Epitaphios, which holds a sacred tapestry depicting the laying of Christ in the tomb, an important symbolic part of the Eastern Orthodox Easter celebration. The annual springtime tradition is for children of the church to decorate the Epitaphios with flowers, threading the stems through the pierced carvings.The priest and several elders of the church carry it in a somber funeral procession around the outside of the church as the entire congregation follows in mourning. Their collective sadness at the death of their Savior is soon replaced when they re-enter the church for a grand celebration, rejoicing in the discovery of Christ’s resurrection.

Needless to say, when I began to learn woodcarving from Konstantinos, his teaching focused on mastering the nuances of the Byzantine style. I practiced carving what seemed like miles of continuous vines, curling and twisting along flat paneled surfaces, intermixed with grapes and symbolic images, especially the traditional peacocks and doves. This Byzantine style is easily recognizable, featuring highly stylized leaves that are splayed and pointed. Sharp “V” cuts shape the surface of leaves and vines. And the many angles and sharply defined lines create dynamic shadows. When viewed from a distance, these elements combine to decorate pieces that have a 3D, almost lifelike quality.

After three hard and rewarding years working and studying under the guidance of Konstantinos, I decided to venture across the globe to learn different styles and techniques from other master woodcarvers. It was to be much like the journeyman of old, beginning their working lives by setting out to work in various workshops to glean as much knowledge as possible from different masters. So without a formal “exam,” how could I prove that I was ready to take this next big step? I needed to design, build and carve a traditional Byzantine-style icon stand, and that is just what I set out to do.

It was finally time to bring together all of the skills I had learned in my three years with Konstantinos. I began by designing the four carved panels that made up the main body of the icon stand. The two side panels had a stylized peacock carved in the center surrounded by curling, twisting grape leaves. The front and rear panels were decorated with the same pointed, scrolling leaves around two medallions. I drilled countless holes into every tiny space between the details to prepare the way for cutting out all of the background wood. By inserting a thin scroll saw blade into the holes and patiently following each twisting curve, each little background shape finally dropped cleanly to the floor to create the pierced panels. It was a grueling week sawing out every portion of the background, but I was motivated by the knowledge that I was just preparing for the fun part.

Finally, after all of the drawing, drilling and sawing, I began the carving. I spent the next three weeks intently detailing all of the panels, carving the peacocks, finalizing the edge mouldings and capitals, and hand-shaping the tall spiral legs. It was a long and exhausting month, but when I proudly unveiled the finished icon stand, I was filled with a deep satisfaction, knowing that I had passed the test. I was now ready to continue my journey, working with and learning from other master carvers. I do look back fondly on those long years of practice and study, and though I have completed many challenging carving projects in the years since, the icon stand holds a place of honor in my portfolio. I have carried it with me for 22 years. These days, it may inspire me with its company in my workshop, dominate the corner of our living room or occupy a place in a furniture show or exhibit, but it will always have a special place in my heart as a representation of two major passages in my life. The first was the “final exam” that marked a major transition in my carving life, and the second was when my husband and I knelt before it humbly as we were married, the priest using it as a lectern in our beautiful outdoor wedding.

The following is extracted from “Carving the Acanthus Leaf” by Mary May.

Learning to carve the acanthus leaf is – for carvers – like a pianist learning a Chopin étude, a young oil painter studying the genius of Rembrandt or an aspiring furniture maker learning to cut dovetails by hand. 

For carvers, especially those who focus on Classical Western ornament, there comes a time they will inevitably encounter the acanthus leaf, learn it, master it and finally incorporate it into their own designs.

“Carving the Acanthus Leaf” is a deep exploration into this iconic leaf, which has been a cornerstone of Western ornamentation for thousands of years. May, a professional carver and instructor, starts her book at the beginning. She covers carving tools and sharpening with the efficiency of someone who has taught for years. Then she plunges the reader directly into the work. Below is chapter 7, which teaches you step by step how to carve an acanthus leaf in a rosette.

Various styles of rosettes have been used since the Roman Empire as decorative accents and are often used as appliqués (applied to a surface) to adorn furniture and architectural features.

Here are some of the design elements for rosettes:

• They are symmetrical and can be circular, oval, square or rectangular.
• There is a small bead in the center that is either plain or carved.
• In oval or rectangular designs, this center bead is also oval.
• Square or round rosettes that are symmetrical can be turned on a lathe before carving to establish the basic profile.
• There are typically four primary leaves evenly positioned around the rosette.
• The leaves start at the center bead and flow outward toward the edge, with the tips of the leaves defining the outer edges.
• For square or rectangular rosettes, the tips of the leaves end at each corner.
• The midribs or center stems get narrower as they reach the ends of the leaves.
• They often have small, secondary leaves that are between and appear to be positioned under each primary leaf. This example does not contain these secondary leaves.

HOW TO DRAW THE LEAF
This design has similar structural elements to other leaves, but some details, such as positioning the eyes, will need to be visually located without guidelines.

STEP 1: Draw a square. This example has slightly curved edges. Draw the center circle and the mid-rib (center stem) of each leaf ending just before each corner. Notice for this design that the midrib connects from one leaf to the next. This is often done to create a continuous flow between the leaves.

STEP 2: Draw the eyes close to the center circle. These eyes represent where two leaves overlap.

STEP 3: Draw eight circles as shown that intersect and slightly overlap at the pointed end of the eye. These locate the edges of the overlapping lobes.

STEP 4: Erase the parts of the circles that are no longer needed. The remaining lines should extend from the pointed end of the eyes. The dotted lines represent the edges of the lobes underneath.

STEP 5: Erase the dotted lines. Draw the two eyes on each leaf about a third of the way up the leaf at a slight distance from the midrib.

STEP 6: Draw circles as shown that represent the overlapping secondary lobes. The edges of these lobes should extend from the eyes drawn in STEP 5. The dotted lines represent the parts of the lobe that are underneath. Sometimes drawing the edges of the lobes first can help locate the eyes, so steps 5 and 6 can be reversed.

STEP 7: Erase the dotted lines. Draw the pipes that start from the eyes drawn in STEP 5 and curve and flow them alongside the midrib.

STEP 8: Draw the lines that locate the serrations as shown. These are typically positioned perpendicular to the center veins on each lobe, but in this design there are no center veins on the side lobes.
Draw these lines at an angle located approximately halfway between the eyes and the tip of each lobe. Note that the center lobe has two of these guidelines that are perpendicular to the midrib. After learning how to position the serrations in the next few steps, these lines are usu-ally no longer necessary as guides.

STEP 9: Take a deep breath. It really isn’t as complicated as it looks. Draw small circles that locate the serrations along the edges of the leaf. These lines should start at the edge of the leaf and curve down to meet the guidelines drawn FIG. 7.14 in STEP 8. The dotted lines show the correct direction of the curve. These circles are simply used to show the curvature of the serrations. Erase the parts of the circles that are not necessary. This process of drawing the circles is often not necessary after learning to understand the shape and position of these serrations.

STEP 10: Erase all lines that are no longer needed. Complete the edges of the leaf by connecting the serration lines as shown and also complete the tips of the leaves.

STEP 11: Erase any unnecessary lines.

STEP 12: Draw lines starting from the inside corners of the serrations that flow down each lobe. These lines represent a high edge (or high corner) in the leaf.

HOW TO CARVE THE LEAF

STEP 1: Prepare the Wood. Study Chapter 2 to learn about different methods to transfer templates to wood. I used carbon paper. Transfer all the lines from the template at the beginning of this chapter and cut out the outline of the design on a band saw or scrollsaw. This will be an appliqué.

STEP 2: Carve the Center Bead. With a 6mm V-chisel, make a 1/16″-deep cut along the outside edge of the center circle. Define the edge of the bead by making vertical cuts directly on the line with a #5, 8mm. With the same #5, 8mm, round over the bead to a half-sphere. Use the #5, 8mm to lower the leaf to the edge of the bead, starting 1/2″ from the edge of the bead.

STEP 3: Round the Leaves. With a #3, 18mm, round over the tips of each leaf starting 1″ from the tip and carving down 1/4″ at the tip (to make the rosette more shaped, this can be rounded deeper). Re-draw any lines that were carved away. NOTE: STEP 1 and STEP 2 can also be done on a lathe.

STEP 4: Carve the Midribs. With a 4mm V-chisel, make deep cuts that define the edge of the mid-ribs. These should be 1/16″ deep toward the center and fade off just before they reach the leaf tips. With a #7, 10mm, carve a slight hollow in the midrib as it comes toward the center bead.

STEP 5: Round the Leaf Next to the Vein. With a #4, 14mm, round over the surface of the leaf down to the edge of the midrib.

STEP 6: Define the Overlapping Lobes. With a 3mm V-chisel, start in the middle of the eye and make a 1/16″-deep cut along the edge of all overlapping lobes.

STEP 7: Carve the Eyes: Study Chapter 3 to learn more about carving eyes. With a #11, 3mm veiner, make a 45° cut at the base of each eye. With a #5, 5mm, continue this cut on either side of the eye to create a teardrop shape that has a sharp, inside corner.

STEP 8: Define the Overlapping Lobes. With gouges that fit the edge of the overlapping lobes (#5, 5mm and #7, 10mm), define the edges with vertical cuts directly on the line.

STEP 9: Lower the Underlying Lobes. With a #5, 8mm, lower the parts of the leaf that appear to go under the overlapping lobes and create a slight hollow cut. Make sure that the sharp edges created by this cut flow in the correct direction.

STEP 10: Carve the Pipes. Study Chapter 3 to learn more about carving pipes. Re-draw pipes that have been carved away. With a #11, 3mm, make long, sweeping cuts along each side of the pipe, starting on either side of the eye.

STEP 11: Round the Leaf. With a #3, 6mm, soften any sharp edges in the leaf surface that were cre-ated by carving the pipes. NOTE: Often pipes are rounded over also, but because these are so small, it would cause them to lose definition.

STEP 12: Hollow the Secondary Lobes. With a #7, 10mm and #7, 8mm, hollow the three secondary lobes in each overlapping lobe.

STEP 13: Hollow the Remaining Secondary Lobes. With a #7, 8mm, hollow all remaining secondary lobes.

STEP 14: Carve the Serration Notch Cuts. Study Chapter 3 to learn more about these defining cuts. With a #5, 8mm, make one cut defining the serration edge and a second cut at a slight angle creating a small triangular notch cut.

STEP 15: Clean the Edges. With a #3, 6mm, make a 45° chamfer along all edges. This will create a clean, well-defined edge and will remove remaining template or pencil lines.

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Where shall we put these? How about as decorative details on the upper corners of door frames? Small rosettes can be added to the corners of kitchen cabinets or accents on dressers or headboards. Then there is that wonderful architectural feature that just begs for carved details – the fireplace mantel. Be creative and either make the rosette a central design feature, or a secondary detail for a simple accent. How about custom coasters and leave a large flat area in the center for wine glasses to fit? I’ll have to think about that one over a glass of wine.

Perhaps the best way to describe Mary May, author of “Carving the Acanthus Leaf,” is to describe another woman – Grace. Grace began as an 8” x 10” x 21” block of mahogany, and emerged not with plan or intent, but with patience, skill and curiosity.

On her blog, Mary wrote about the process of carving Grace without referring to a model – a process called “direct” carving. “A woman was in there somewhere,” Mary wrote. “I just needed to begin chipping the wood away and find out where and who she was.”

And so it is with Mary herself. A carver was inside her, always – that’s evident in her childhood stories of three-dimensional play and carved zucchini dolls. But just as Mary handled Grace, she has worked her way through life not with a grinder, but rather slowly, with a mallet and chisel. “Without having a specific design, how do you know what is ‘waste’ wood, anyway?” she writes when talking about carving Grace. “This process of slowly chipping away helped me to discover the design as I carved.”

And so it is with Mary’s life. Her life experiences have allowed herself to live three-dimensionally. In fact, her work these days is split in thirds – carving, teaching and creating online videos. And what has emerged is a well-respected career that has allowed her to fill her days doing exactly what she loves.

A Childhood of Fulfilled Dreams & Eccentricity
Mary was born in the Chicago area and grew up in the city’s suburbs until she was 11. Her dad was working as a systems analyst at a time when computer programming was still young. His commute into the city took two hours – each way. “He got really burnt out on that,” Mary says. Wanting to simplify, Mary’s dad quit his job and became an auto mechanic, a job he held for many years.

“What’s interesting is that my dad actually went to college for philosophy and theology,” Mary says. And her dad would argue that having studied both subjects made for a perfect combination for his newfound profession. “In his very unique mind it was the right combination of someone who could figure things out and solve problems,” Mary says.

Mary’s mom collected junk and sold it. “Our entire house was just filled with all sorts of collected things,” Mary says. “I had an interesting childhood. I thought it was a normal childhood, but now that I look back on it, it probably wasn’t.”

Mary grew up with three brothers and one sister, and their childhood was spent following the whimsy of their parents. Their father’s boatbuilding hobby is a good example.

“He built two different boats, one when I was 4 and the other when I was 11,” Mary says. Once the boats were built, the entire family lived on them. “The second time we were all teenagers – well, I was almost a teenager,” Mary says. “I can’t even imagine what my parents were thinking.”

Mary says her dad, who died in 2003, served in the Navy and she has often wondered if that played a part. He sought out adventure and regularly eschewed the traditional road.

“He was a quiet, normal-acting and -looking person,” Mary says. “But he just had this dream and he wanted to live it and nothing was going to stop him. It was quite an adventure. As a child, I probably didn’t appreciate it much. It definitely was something that was very valuable as to how we developed our way of thinking and of dreaming.”

While on the first boat trip (they traveled the length of the Mississippi River and then sailed to the Bahamas) Mary says she and her siblings continued their education by taking correspondence courses through the mail. During the second boat trip they stayed in the Florida Keys for six months so the children could attend school.

“We were staying at a marina, anchored, and we were on a serious budget,” Mary says. The marina charged docking fees and utilities, but if your boat was simply anchored, there was no charge. So Mary and her siblings would pile into a rowboat and row themselves to shore every day to catch the school bus.

“My dad’s quiet way of living his dream had a real significance on my decision-making,” Mary says. “I think the main thing that I gained from it is other people may think your dream is odd and obscure, but if it’s your dream then go ahead and dream it and do what you can to achieve it.”

Mary’s family moved from the suburbs of Chicago to rural Wisconsin when she was 12. “It was a pretty drastic lifestyle change, living out in the country,” she says. When they first moved to Wisconsin they lived in a trailer they had previously used as a summer vacation home. For six months – including a Wisconsin winter – it was as if they were back on the boat, living in a trailer that had no running water. Mary says she remembers going to the neighbor’s house to fill up five-gallon buckets of water and carrying them home. “It was rough,” she says. After six months, they found a new place to live. “It had running water and was a little more civilized,” she says.

Mary lived in rural Wisconsin until she graduated from Sparta High School in 1985. “I really enjoyed the country,” she says. “I enjoyed the quietness of it. My parents were concerned with the influence that the city and the suburbs would have on us so they just wanted us to get out and experience the rural life.”

Learning to See in Three Dimensions
From a young age, Mary loved shaping three-dimensional things. And her mother’s collected junk gave her much to play with. She remembers shadow boxes that intrigued her, and Strawberry Shortcake wrapping paper, in particular. At 7 or 8 years old Mary remembers cutting out the little images of Strawberry Shortcake, making arms and sticking them on, adding dimension to what was previously flat. She became acutely aware of the closeness of things, the thickness of things, how objects could look farther apart and then appear closer to the background.

“I was interested,” she says. “It was a training ground. I started to view and visualize things, and I think that was a real plus. I don’t think my parents had a clue where that would lead me but it was interesting.”

She calls herself an obsessive child who had a tendency to latch onto projects. Once, while living on the boat, she asked her dad for all of the boat’s dimensions. She wanted to draw an exact replica of the boat, scaled down on paper. Her dad taught her how to use the scale ruler and she spent hours replicating the boat, every tiny detail – she was 11.

While Mary was surrounded by a lot of creativity growing up, compliments and encouragement were rare. “My dad, especially I think, was not a man of very many words and it was very hard to get any kind of response at all,” she says. “When he did encourage you, you thought, Wow. I’m going to grab and hold onto that one. They just expected us to succeed in whatever it was we were doing. They expected us to be good at whatever we did.”

Mary loved hanging out with her dad who was a hobby carpenter. One time, at the age of 12, she was out in the garage with her dad and told him she wanted to make a dollhouse. “My dad helped me get plywood and taught me how to use the scroll saw to cut out the windows and how to use the hand drill,” she says. “I made my first dollhouse and it was pretty rustic but it was mine. I think that was probably the first time I built something in wood. I sold it at a garage sale for $8.” She wishes she had kept it.

Mary began carving at a young age, although not in wood. In her book she tells a story about carving a pumpkin in Wisconsin (and also a delightful story about carving her name in her dresser). “I kind of always did that kind of thing,” she says. “We had huge zucchinis that would grow in the garden, beyond the point of being edible. I’d carve faces into the ends of them.” The necks of these dolls would weaken, turning the zucchinis into bobble heads. “I’d walk around with the bobble head and eventually it got so weak that the head would fall off and that was pretty traumatic.”

The Art of Making the Complex, Simple
Mary attended college for two years, but was undecided about her future. She took a class in ceramics that she loved – because it was three-dimensional. She knew she wanted a career in art, but she hadn’t yet discovered carving wood, specifically. And the idea of living her life as a starving artist offered little appeal.

During her second year of college Mary studied abroad in London. “That’s when I ended up absolutely falling in love with stone and wood carvings,” she said. Now, when she looks back at the photographs during her time abroad, she sees a theme – photo after photo of carvings and architectural details from the insides of churches and cathedrals. “It’s interesting to look back to see what you gravitated toward and what you didn’t,” she says. “You can look back and kind of locate those things.”

Mary wasn’t a good student. “I didn’t take notes very well,” she says. “I would take an entire page of notes where I would make everything three dimensional with the letters coming off the page. I never paid any attention to what the teacher was saying, but I would have pages of these very bizarre, three-dimensional notes.

Feeling like she wasn’t heading in any specific direction and not wanting to spend more money, Mary dropped out of college and enrolled at a technical college. For two years she studied desktop publishing – what is now called graphic design. “I ended up working at the school that I studied at as a desktop publisher,” she says. Her job was to assist tutors and redesign old, worn-out, hand-drawn and handwritten instructional packets. Think: a manual teaching someone how to change a tire.

“I think that really, really helped writing my book,” she says. Mary wrote “Carving the Acanthus Leaf” with a layout in mind. And although she’s never studied teaching, designing instructional packets at the technical college required her to think as a teacher would. “What I try to do is remember back to when you first start doing something,” she says. “I really try to get into their heads and into their position of being a beginner.”

There’s an art to making the complex seem simple, and it’s an art Mary excels at, as is evident not only in her book, but also in her classes (ask any of her former students) as well as her instructional videos. Her goal, when teaching in person, on video or on paper, is to take out any possibility of misunderstanding while also creating an increased interest in the work, all the while crafting a simple explanation of what actually is a complex idea and design.

Creating a Career Out of Carving
Mary began carving while working at the technical college. She bought a beginning woodcarving book at a garage sale, a large curved gouge and a rubber mallet. Her workshop was in her bedroom. It was during this time that she started taking classes two nights a week with a Greek master carver named Konstantinos Papadakis.

“The more I started to carve, the more I was attached to it,” she says. “I couldn’t get away from it. Even when I was at my job and trying to do these learning packets, I was constantly thinking what I wanted to carve. I think it just became an obsession.”

And this is why Mary was so happy to be laid off from her job with severance pay. “I was really trying to figure out how to do the carving full time and I couldn’t come up with a way to do that and be a responsible citizen,” she says.

She traveled to Athens, Greece, this time to Theofanis Andravidiotis’s studio, where she worked alongside master Greek carvers and their apprentices. From there she traveled once again to London, where she attended City & Guilds of London Art College, studying traditional carving designs and techniques. She also did a stint working as a stone carver in Malaysia. (You can read much more about all of this in her book.)

While Mary loved the training, she said she did have to go through a bit of a punishing period where you had to prove yourself. And then she fast-forwards for a moment, mentioning how often people want to become a master carver after taking one week-long class. “It’s difficult to convince people you’ll need a little bit more time,” she says. “You have to put in the time.”

When living in the states, work, at times, was sparse. Mary would do occasional sign carvings as well as spec pieces, including the Byzantine-style icon stand featured in her book. Mary found it difficult to get her name out, and difficult to prove to people what she could do. So she simply continued working on her skills and techniques until a man she was dating convinced her to move down to South Carolina. “That’s when the work really started to open up because of the area and the historical significance in Charleston,” she says.

In South Carolina, after some time, Mary found lots of work repairing and restoring furniture, as well as working on new homes along the coast. But the work wasn’t immediate. The key was convincing people of what she could do. Many builders and homeowners didn’t realize, for example, that a hand-carved fireplace mantel was a possibility. So Mary had to put herself out there, presenting herself in a way that was starkly different from the person she used to be.

“I was actually a very shy person,” Mary says of her childhood self. “I think there was a big part of me that needed to get over my shyness to function in the world. I had to force myself to get out there and go traveling. And I did a lot of traveling on my own and forced myself to get out and interact with people. It helped me through that – when you realize if you want the chance to live a successful life, you kind of have to get past that.”

Mary’s also tough. She circles back to her childhood, to the six months she lived in a trailer with no water. “I knew I could survive in pretty sparse living conditions,” she says. “I was willing to do that [again], to put up with whatever came my way, to live as frugally as possible, to take on a second job, to take on another real job – fortunately I never had to do that then.”

After finally landing in a comfortable place of steady work doing what she loved, Mary did have a concern. If this was something she was passionate about and loved to do, what would happen when it became her career? Would she lose the passion once her hobby became her business? Her concern, it turns out, appears to be unfounded. “Twenty-seven years later I still absolutely love it,” she says.

“An Enjoyable Adventure”
Flexibility and creativity have been important to Mary’s success. “There are times when I don’t have a lot of commissions, when I don’t have a lot of work, and I have a lot of time to think and get creative,” she says. “[I think:] I want to continue to do this as my job. How else can I look at this? Maybe I can go this direction, maybe I can do teaching, start an online video school. And that’s how I started the online school. I didn’t have a lot of work six years back and I wanted to keep doing this. But how?”

The key, Mary says, is to not get burned by doing one thing and one thing only way too long. “It becomes repetitive,” she says. “You get burned out. With the variety that comes with my work there are very few times when that happens.”

Mary still lives in South Carolina, but not with the man who initially convinced her to move down south. (There is a lovely story about how she met her now-husband, Stephen, in her book.) For the last 16 years she and Stephen have lived on a couple acres in the country on St. John’s Island.

When they bought their home, it was falling apart. “The person who built it was about 4’11”, and all the ceilings were short,” she says. “He basically built it to fit his height.” So Mary and Stephen, who works as a private contractor, completely redid the house. “It was a fun process,” Mary says. “My husband did a lot of the restoration and renovation. We only have a few items in the house that I actually carved. It’s really like the cobbler’s house.”

And whenever Stephens’s work was slow, he would work on Mary’s workshop, every couple of years adding another extension. “It’s a beautiful little workshop,” she says.

These days, Mary’s work consists of teaching, at different locations and occasionally in her workshop, working on her online videos and working on commissions. Last year, finishing up her book added another layer of work on top of her busy schedule – she found herself up until midnight, 1 a.m., 2 a.m., sometimes 3 a.m., every night plus weekends. “I’m still recovering from that,” she says. The work did, however, prompt her to take a one-week-long cruise with her sister. “Then my sister convinced me to do a back-to-back cruise, so we did another week and it was very irresponsible. It was one of those things I used to do before I was married.”

Her days are often similar. The mornings are reserved for computer work. She helps Stephen with his bookwork, does his invoices and catches up on email. Then she heads out to her shop to work on her commissions. “Sometimes I can spend 5 hours or 10 hours a day, depending on how critical the deadline is,” she says. “Occasionally, if I’m working on a commission, I like to video it so I can include that as a project and a lesson on my online school.”

She’s not good at taking breaks. “I sort of forget and five or six hours later I realize that I haven’t stopped,” Mary says. “But it’s funny because I had some students here taking classes and at 10 a.m. in the morning they wanted to take a break and I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ And they asked, ‘Where are some chairs to sit in?’ And I said, ‘Chairs? What do you mean? We don’t have any chairs around here.’ And I realized, oh my goodness, I don’t stop. So I went to the Dollar Store to buy some chairs so they could sit and take a break.” She laughs.

Filming her work requires three cameras, all of which are set up in her workshop. “They’re just on tripods,” she says. “I’m pretty much here by myself.” She likes it that way. She has a computer in her shop and because she’s by herself, she says she can take as many takes as she wants. “When I mess up I don’t have to waste anybody else’s time,” she says.

Mary’s oldest stepson, Caleb, is her video editor. “He’s the one that makes me look good,” she says. “He did say he’s saving all the bloopers. I’m not sure what I’m going to get, a blooper reel? He takes all of them and he does a great job of making sure whatever camera angle is correct and zooms in and it’s all pretty much real time. It’s in-house. I do the videos and Caleb does the editing. We keep very busy with that. We do a video every week. It’s going really well. There’s a lot of interest and I’m excited to see a lot of beginners get into that.”

When asked about her hobbies, Mary says she enjoys gardening but she’s not very good at it. “I’ve been asked, ‘What do you do for fun?’ And I’m like, I have to think of something clever. The first thing I thought of was carving. ‘What do you do for fun?’ My career. I thought it was sort of the best answer I could give. I really couldn’t think of anything else.”

She still loves to travel. “We’re kind of homebodies here,” she says. “But I like to travel and I hope to travel a lot more. My husband likes to come with me occasionally when I teach in different locations.”

And thinking both in terms of flexibility and creativity, Mary has been considering a new idea – a mobile workshop, that would allow for travel, videos on the road, interviews and workshops in different parts of the country. “If I have too much time on my hands, I can see different ways to steer it,” she says.

Mary finds satisfaction in all her work’s dimensions. “Carving itself is very enjoyable and I get to lose myself for hours,” she says. “There’s a different type of satisfaction when you’re teaching. And there’s still something different of just being able to share – other people get just as excited. I get the occasional email from students and I’m thrilled with what they’ve done. I love that part of it.”

When looking back on her life thus far, Mary gives God a lot of credit. “I acknowledge that God gives us gifts and I think you need to realize where the gifts come from and my gifts do come from God,” she says. “I think ultimately life is a challenge but you can take those challenges on and actually turn them around as an enjoyable adventure. I think that’s probably how I have survived as many years as I have doing what I really love to do.”

— Kara Gebhart Uhl