You can zoom into the image below using the controls near the bottom. To get an idea of scale, see the picture to the right.

I never had any formal art class or training in carving, so I was pretty much winging it through the entire process. I did have some drafting background so I knew that I could draw with accuracy, and I am not totally incompetent when in comes to design. Or, maybe I am and this stuff is really just very easy. While carving the project went by the name Exodus. 

One of the biggest compliments I always receive is when someone asks, "Was this done by computer?". Another thing I have always heard, quite consistently actually, is that I must have the patience of Job. I'd have to agree that I do have a great deal of patience. In fact I have never met someone as patient as myself.

I recently discovered I had taken pictures along the way - 10 years ago, with a point and shoot film camera. The prints are admittedly pretty bad, but at least they exist, eh.

During the process of drawing and carving, I had to problem solve and literally make up tools as I went along. Tools like a 3' long adjustable compass, anti-crossed eye glasses (Yeah, you read right), ceiling mounted positionable lighting, protection system, knives, and a XY task light. Some of these will be pictured on the tools of.

Grey is made in three major sections that fit together like a puzzle. I really don't remember where I started, but I know I drew each piece in it's entirety, and carved it, before I started on the next piece.  Below you'll see a couple drawing tools and a small power eraser and the right hand side of Grey. The pieces fit inside a trough made to protect the edges during carving, and I used a dummy center piece to fill in the center cavity. 

Below is my setup. I looked around for operating room lights so I can position light where I needed it, when I needed it. At that time, operating room lights were hard to come by :-) So, I made a complex pulley system on my office ceiling attached to pods that each held three articulated desk lights, pictured right. In both pictures you can see my main light that actually attached to rail that slide across Grey as an up close and personal light. It slide along both the X and Y axis, plus it was articulated, so it was really all light, *anywhere* I wanted it.  Right side, you can  is also see more of my drawing tools. 

As you can see below, I carve much like I think, out of order, but precisely. There is no rhyme or reason to where I carve and when, it is more probably what part I find that I'd like to focus on that day. One thing about chip carving is that it is completely unforgiving. If you make it mistake, it's a mistake, forever. In other styles of carving, say relief, if you make a small mistake, you can make the leaf or branch a little longer, or shorter. In chip carving, there is so much symmetry, it would just not fit - it's like if a single piece of a puzzle is made wrong - you can tell.

So, I didn't make any mistakes.

Below right is the amount of the wood that was exposed at any one time. When in the field, I was pretty much laying on top of Grey. I was able to do this because I was very careful to completely protect the entire surface at all times. I used 3/32 thick dense paper sheets to bridge over the already carved portions while laying on top. There was NEVER any portion exposed unless I was carving it. When I carved close to an edge I used a knee chair when the angle permitted.

Pictured above right is the mounting system for Grey (this is all kinda out of order I guess!) After much thought,  I went with a french shelf for several reasons. First, there was no where to screw through the carving. Second, it was in three pieces and I didn't want a lot of "handling" during any mounting or moving task. Lastly, seemed like it was the thinnest design I could come up with. The mahogany frame *is* the french shelf. So, besides Grey, the frame/mount is only 3/4 inch thick and mounts flat to the wall. Pictured is the carving side portions, permanently attached to Grey, that hang on the french shelf. I did a lot of testing on a lot of types of glues to find the strongest bond. TightBond II, at the time, was the winner. My only regret was that I should have tried harder to devise a frame that could have been dismantled for shipping. The frame is the largest single piece.

See, on right, why did I carve it that way? Seriously I left the middle field for last? You'd think I'd work outward or something... whatever. Anyways, as you can see I mixed a little relief carving in with all the geometric chip carving. I didn't want any still life, as that would completely clash (and I dislike still life carvings), but the patterns and contours work well in my opinion.

Grey is a vessel. She allowed me to invest in her portions of me that I could no longer keep.

She can tell many stories, first and foremost being the representational messages that are present in all art. I won't go into those because they are largely fake.

The most mysterious part of grey are the encrypted messages. I'll be the first to admit that the ciphers used are incredibly simplistic, in fact I know of no simpler. However, hiding the messages was not the goal but rather my intent was to create a particular moment before the ciphers are broken. I cannot really go into too much detail because if a viewer knows too much going in, it defeats the purpose of them entirely.

All I can say is that they are simple and that there is more than one. As for the moment I refer to, it is not one you would want to experience, especially if you are scientist or scholar. The only advice I'll give you is this: Before you open your mouth, be sure.

There are also some parts of Grey that have to do with me personally. They are of no particular interest to the viewer and have no relationship to the representational aspects of Grey. They are simply a recording, a few things that needed to be transferred from where they were, to be left forever where they are.

You cannot deny that Grey, in terms of scale, intricacy, and execution, is best described as a feat. This was on purpose. The parts of me that I have given her belong nowhere else than within something unique to this world. Had I wanted to make a cool carving, I would have made something much quicker, smaller, and commercially viable.

She is what she is because that is what she had to be.

Surprisingly this is not about carving knives. Drawing and carving such a small and intricate design over a large area posed several issues along the way that needed to be figured out.

Pictured below is a 40 inch compass I made in order to draw very large circles. I made a 1/4" x 3/4" piece of mahogany, which I could have made any length I wanted really. On one end I attached a small stand off to get some height in order to give me some creative room on the drawing end. You'll notice that I took the needle from an actual compass and inserted it into the stand off.

In the middle and right pictures are both sides of the drawing end of the compass. As you can see by loosening the top thumb screw and sliding it along the length of the aforementioned shaft. If I remember correctly, these brass sides were part of a compass kit, so that made it particularly easy. What was not part of the kit was the lead holder. I took the lead holder out of an actual compass and carved a groove, making sure the bottom of the groove would apply pressure to the lead holder. This is actually the same way it is done on a real compass. The middle picture shows the plastic thumbscrew which then tightened draws the lead holder towards the more narrow groove bottom, thusly tightening the lead holder.

Below is a small, well I call it a compass, but what it actually does is trace inside or outside rounded edges. The key to this device is the bottom edge. If you look closely it is rounded, however in middle of the round there is a divot taken out, creating two points. If you keep these two points against a the edge, it will keep the tool at a right angle from the current position/angle at any given moment. Without the outer corners being rounded, they'd interfere with inside rounds. Without the divot taken out of the middle, it would interfere with outside rounds.

People get a kick out of this one. Pictured below right is a large expanse of weave I carved on Grey. As soon as I even started drawing the pattern I noticed that I would instantly go cross-eyed. I believe it is because I was physically so close to the very small intricate and vast repeating pattern that my eyes were confused on what they should focus on. Had the design been more open or differentiated, it would be fine - like other parts of Grey. I needed to be close in order to carve the intricate design, however I needed to focus in order to execute! With a little experimenting I discovered that I needed to reduce the amount of light coming into my eyes, and also reduce the amount of pattern that was visible. While carving I usually wore reading glasses in order to magnify everything which I'd guess is quite normal for this style of carving. So I needed a combination of two glasses.

I took an old pair of sun glasses and painted the lenses solid black in order to reduce the amount of light coming in. I then drilled out two small holes which would serve to reduce my viewing field. I then cut up a pair of magnifying 1.5 glasses and drilled small holes in the sunglasses to accept the 1/4" of "leg" I left on the lenses. Mounting them this way, I was able to flip the mags up when I didn't need them without having to completely remove the glasses.