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ANDRZEJ CICHON
Polish wood carver
I started carving for pleasure when I was 12. I was making small figurines from broken poplar branches with a pocket-knife. Later, when my father was building our house, I used concrete bricks as carving material. Then I took part in some local competitions and started to carve in a more advanced way. So gradually I became a professional woodcarver.
First of all, one has to prepare the wood for carving. I use lime wood I buy from state forests, and it lies in piles for one-and-a-half to two years.
I cut the logs in half so they don't crack. Then I peel them to prevent bark beetles and other pests from damaging the wood. The following stage is an idea, a conception. Either I have some idea or a customer tells me what he wishes to order. I have several hundred pictures of my work, but a client often asks me to introduce his particular ideas. For example, recently one ordered a composition of a family house but instead of the two children shown on the picture he wanted to have six children, a dog and a cat. I don't draw projects on paper. Everything comes into being in my head. When I have a fixed conception in my head, I pick up the proper piece of wood and start to rough it down. The initial shaping is done with a hatchet, some technical cuts I make with a saw. Then I take chisel and hammer and I make a form of the sculpture. With cutters and penknives I've mostly made myself, I give the sculpture its final shape. I also use some sand-paper to smooth it. Then the sculpture goes into the hands of my wife Grazyna for painting. A sculpture originates from an inspiration. During the German occupation, my grandfather's yard bordered on the ghetto. He told me how Jews were passing from the ghetto through his woodshed, seeking food and sometimes to escape. I have made a composition showing my vision of that, and this sculpture is now in a museum in Plock.