Twenty-three years and counting, John Schirmer has carved out a week of his life just before Christmas to, well, carve.
In town last week until Saturday afternoon, the Fairfield, Iowa, resident once again took up tools in the back of the Candle Factory's retail space. He continued hewing a block of white pine into a teacher and a student, a figure started last year. Created at 55 percent scale, the pair will join seven other sculptures plus a three-panel triptych in the collection known as the Elferdinck Project.
Commissioned in 1984 by John Teichman of the Candle Factory, the project brings the fictitious character Elferdinck to life in wood.
With a third year at least on deck for 2007 to complete the teacher-student statue, Schirmer was in the thrall of his artistic vision last week.
"I'm trying to get the relationship between a teacher and a student — just that image of soaking it all in and the wisdom being imparted,” said Schirmer, a Michigan native and former Traverse City resident. "They're both holding a book in the circle of knowledge.”
For his part, Teichman is thrilled to continue the tradition that fulfills a story he dreamed up.
"It's more of a collection that will be around for hundreds of years now and we don't know where it will wind up,” noted Teichman.
Nestled in a corner of the Candle Factory under a large Christmas tree are seven village elders, representing the inhabitants of Elferdinck's childhood home. Working nearby on a lamp lit bench, Schirmer tapped and shaved cuts large and small as shoppers watched and asked questions. Well known in town because of the project and annual media coverage, many stopped in just to see him work. Through it all Schirmer fielded questions with characteristic patience and good nature, hands rarely still as he shaped the wood.
"The most common questions are, 'Is that Michigan White Pine?' and 'How often do you sharpen your tools?'” said Schirmer, answering the first with a "probably not” and the second, after a discourse from a visitor Friday morning on the Japanese approach to woodcarving, with a tongue-in-cheek "every seven strokes.”
Mounted on the north wall near his workbench, Schirmer's oversized triptych illustrates Elferdinck's life. The first panel showing his boyhood in a village on a Swiss mountain and the second panel depicts his later years living on the Grand Traverse Bay. The third, center panel, the largest of the trio mounted on a wall in the Candle Factory, describes the fictitious Elferdinck's religious philosophy.
Starting from a sketch and some photos of live models, Schirmer formally begins each figure by making what's called a cartoon — the look of a piece all drawn out in pencil. He rough cuts the glued together block of white pine 2x12s with a chain saw before getting started with mallet and chisels.
By the time he is done a few work weeks (and years) later, his meticulous work has captured details down to eyebrows, fingernails and buttons.
"I go from general to specific, I try not to get to many details in early, just the shape of the body,” he said. "Then when you go to put in the details, everything lines up because the structure was there.”
Schirmer makes a living as a printmaker, having trained with Gwen Frostic, and sells his work at art fairs and on the Internet. He relishes his annual weeks in Traverse City, even if it is a working vacation.
"I don't do this all the time, that's what's so nice about it, to come here and carve wood,” said Schirmer. "Printmaking is a little different thinking.”