LOST CARVING: A Journey to the Heart of Making

Esterly has been a professional wood carver since the 1970s, and the acclaimed critic and biographer Jenny Uglow has written the introduction: 'From the first page, as David Esterly whisks us into his studio, this is a magical book, transporting us to a wood-carver's world. We breath in the nutty scent of lime wood shavings and see the tools laid out on the bench, 130 chisels and gouges each with their own role, their own history.' Esterly died in 2019 and was a master of his art and a captivating storyteller as the seasons change around his studio in the foothills of the Adirondacks as he works on different carvings and writes this book. In the background runs the story of his first sighting of Grinling Esterly's miraculous swags of fruit and flowers in St James's Church, Piccadilly, many years before. The core of the book is the March 1986 fire on the upper floor of Hampton Court Palace where flames funnelled through the King's Apartments built by Sir Christopher Wren for William III. Gibbons's elaborate overmantels and drops blackened in the smoke. After frustrating arguments as to whether only a British carver should be appointed, Esterly is called in to provide the brief for the restoration and to recreate the only lost (it seems) beyond hope carving, a complex seven-foot-long drop framing a door, now burnt to a shapeless lump. As readers we are given rare insight into the tension between momentum and control that informs the carver's craft, restraining the drive, while the heel of the rear hand rests on the wood, grounding it, keeping it stable and the whole body involved, even in the bend of the shoulder and the twist of the torso. Our pleasure in this memoir is its exploration of creativity. Beautiful close-up photographs of such realistic looking wood carvings of flowers such as one on a wall at the Privy Garden and dozens of Gibbons's original panels and paintings and images of the fire. 282 page paperback, fully illus.