My nephew and his 10 year old granddaughter stopped by to get some tomatoes a couple of days ago. I was picking over the tomato patch when they arrived. They came in the house and sat a few minutes. While there, my nephew pointed out a walnut bull on a dresser and told her I made it. Her reaction was, “No he didn’t.” I asked her why she thought I didn’t make it. She said I couldn’t have made it because you have to be an artist to make something like that. I told her that I am an artist and that I made that carving and all other carvings in the house. (The list is above 50.) She wasn’t having it. The only previous context in which she had been around me was either in a tobacco patch or the heated room in my nephew’s barn where I help him strip tobacco. I don’t suppose she could wrap her mind around the possibility that I could be a farm laborer and something else too.
Although it’s a matter of little consequence whether she believes I make my wood carvings or not, I was curious to see if there was anything I could do to convince her that I made them. So I say, “I have a carving in progress. Would you believe I made these carvings if you see one partly finished?” She said that she would, so we went up the the barn and I showed her Reach, the carving shown in this diary. She still wasn’t convinced. Her next conjecture was that I bought something nearly made and just sanded it and put a finish on it. I pointed out that no part of Reach is fully shaped, but I could see I was getting no where and gave up.
After I gave up, she asked me to make her a carving for her upcoming 10th birthday.
“Why,” I ask, “would I make a carving for you when you don’t even believe I can make carvings at all?”
“If you make me a shark, then I’ll believe you.”
“Suppose I did make a shark. The shark can’t just be floating in the air like it would be floating in the water. It will have to connect to something that’s grounded. How about if I make a shark that’s swallowing you? Your feet would be on the ground and the rest of you would be in the shark.”
She was cool with that.
I don’t think I’m going to proceed with such a grotesque idea. Guess I’ll just have to live with her disbelief. She did get a shark on her birthday cake.