The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1936-09-04
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81
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WHITING

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and carving is art, yet most whiting,
just cutting on wood-making shaw
ings, usually winds up in some
recognizable shape.
Many of the nations problems
have been settled over the whiting
block and sometimes one feels that
Robins statue "The Thinker, in
front of the Baltimore Museum
should have been posed whiting.
Now, thes boy is just sitting
thing would at least indicate some
industry.
Until recently whiting blocks
were actually kept in Senate for the
senators. That was when old single
blade rlow-bone-handle knife
and the village store forum were In
their heyday, when Industrial Arts
in the schools was confined to carv-
ing initials, arrow pierced hearts
and other tit-tat on desk tops. In
those days two-bladed knife made
a boy a king. The $50 blade knife
now hanging in one Of the arcade
windows somewhere in Radio City
would have lifted the village whit
tier to his proper place as the 7th
wonder of the community.
Until the new plastics came into
wide use wood-white pine-was
mans best and most accessible cary
ing material. Without question the
one thing that put whiting In the
background temporarily was the in
vention of the corrugated pasteboard
shipping box. A few years ago, prac-
tically all merchandise was shipped
in white pine boxes because of its
strength and light weight, but now
the sweet smelling pine box is seldom
used except for matches and print
ing paper.
In recent years whiting has been
turned to good account by the APP
palachian mountain folk and now
hundreds of objects are cut out by
native wood, both hard and soft, and
sold over the entire United States.
Where they used to just "set and
chaw and chip" they now collect the
cash from visiting tourists. Should
your vacation carry you to Ken
lucky, Tennessee or Western North
Carolina be sure to stop at the craft
shops in Berea, Tryon, Gatlinburg,
Crosnore, Waynesville, Cherokee and
Little Switzerland. Perhaps, there
are few of these craft shops hid
den away in the hills of Maryland
and Virginia but 1 have not seen
them.
The most famous whittlers-oT
carvers as they prefer to be called
are found in the hills back of Ober-
Ammergau in Upper Babaria, Ger
many, the seat Of the famous Passion
Play but the annual Ivory Soap
Sculpture Contest is reviving this in
teresting pastime and someday soon
may produce real American
whittier.
Down at Hurlock there used to be
a whittlers bench. There the old
heads would sit, banter and white
away the hours probably not know
ing that they were crystallizing
opinion and settling weighty matters.
One ambitious whittier exhibited at
the Laurel Hobby Fair a fve-foot
chain of about twenty links whitfield
from one piece of white pine. Oc-
casionally boys are seen changing
pine bark into fine little boats and
men to man them. Nathan Hubbard
of Easton, Ted Willer of St. Michaels,
Stella Hutchinson of Cordova and
Jean Pugh of Trappe make soap
carvings and are interested in sculp-
ture. And now that this is the
peach season why not change a peach
seed into basket or monkey biting
his tail? In Florida the natives
make men out of coconuts and in
California they make dozens Of
souvenirs from Redwood bark which
is often eighteen inches thick.
When you white do more than
make chips!
Books: Art of Whittling-Fauret;
Work with a Knife; Boy Craftsman
Hall; Boys Book on Handicraft-
Frazer.