HOW CARVERS COME ABOUT CARVING

A woodcarver is someone who is involved in the art of cutting designs into wood or carve objects out of wood. There are lot of wood carvers in Ghana and Africa as a whole who engages in the art of creating wonderful sculptures and figures that tend to carry specific meanings and also just for decoration purposes.

In order for something to be carved by a wood carver, there must be a sketch or design available into which that thing will be carved. Some wood carvers are lucky with the gift of drawing or sketching items for carvings. Whilst others depend on drawings before they carve an item. Most often, some individuals take their sketches to the carver to be carved for them. An example of items that can be given to a carver to be carved is a “portrait picture” of oneself.

Carvers at most time uses their creative sense to carve sculptures that look attractive to buyers or people at a first glimpse. However, some people prefer an item to be carved according to their specific needs so they team up with the carver to produce those items.

The question I ask myself is; “how do these carvers come to know how to create such wonderful sculptures and figures?”In my quest to understand this, I spoke to Papa Muku Sakyi who has been into wood carving for 43 years  He is from the Volta region of Ghana; however he did not learn how to carve from there. He got his training from a man in Accra, specifically Adabraka Official Town.

According to him, one can learn how to carve locally from a family member who is in the field already or from whomever one chooses is appropriate to learn from. He says, formal education is not a requirement inorder to learn how to carve. One can learn even without formal education. You can start carving if you think you have the talent or someone can give you an idea and if you are interested, you can start learning how to carve, maybe by apprenticeship. According to Papa Sakyi, one just has to be creative, because that will help you to come up with wonderful arts and designs. He started by learning how to carve elephants because his master was specialized in carving elephants. However, due to his interest in carving and his creativity, he started trying to carve sculptures of other animals and even of human beings.

        Papa Muku and one of his elephant sculptures

Papa Sakyi is now a great carver who has taught a lot of youth including his own son who works with him at his shop in the “ARTS CENTER”. Some of his students had the idea to carve and came to him, whilst others saw his work and got interested in carvings.

In view of this, it can be agreed that in order for one to carve, you just need to be completely interested in it, have the creativity and the passion to learn how to create diverse form of carvings.

                       A typical wood carving work shop.