Spring it on me — wood carving inspiration

It’s Springtime in the northern hemisphere. The warmer weather is drawing our American wood carving friends out of their caves, yawning and stretching with hands outstretched towards their picnic blankets. Spring has a youthful energy of blossoming and new growth, and with enough coffee they can feel that too and get going on some awesome wood carving projects. 

North America has a pretty exciting wood carving community. Around this time of year, Nashville-based artist Anne Briggs - Anne of all trades - gets started on carving wooden salad servers to scoop some fresh salads with friends. Anne uses any freshly cut wood but loves cherry wood, fruit wood or walnut in particular for spoons. Anne says you can collect wood that’s blown onto the ground by a windstorm or ask your neighbor for some cuttings if they’ve just trimmed back their tree. She even pops down to the local orchard and asks for offsets from fruit tree prunings. Whatever the source, she wants that wood green so it’s easier to carve. 

Anne loves the Arbortech Mini Carver woodcarving tool, she says it's so versatile. “It removes a ton of material in a hurry, but also offers enough control to do detailed work,” Anne said. “I love to use it in conjunction with hand tools because it saves a ton of time and also allows me to remove material from the exact spot I need to follow up with hand tools and leave a really nice surface.”