The essence of wood carving
(Baonghean.vn) -
In recent years, wood carvers from craft villages in the North have established and developed traditional crafts in Thanh Vinh.On Le Viet Thuat Street (Hung Loc Commune, Vinh City), there is always the bustling sound of chisels, the rustling sound of sandpaper, planes, saws... with the fragrant smell of wood, the pungent smell of paint from the wood carving establishments located along the road.
Visiting the workshop, we learned that most of the workers came from famous wood carving villages in the North such as Phu Khe (Tu Son - Bac Ninh), Thiet Ung (Dong Anh - Hanoi), La Xuyen (Y Yen - Nam Dinh)... On the way to establish a career, they brought with them the "father-to-son" profession and stopped to establish it in Vinh City.
Wood carving profession attracts many young people with stable income.
Mr. Dang Van Dung - the owner of the establishment from Hai Duong, said: My hometown has Dong Giao wood carving village, I have been familiar with the profession since primary school. In 2007, when I went to Vinh to visit relatives and realized that there was an opportunity for development here, my wife and I decided to stay, rent a workshop to open this establishment. The carving profession requires the craftsman to focus on the image and put his soul into the work, only then will there be a truly beautiful work. Because it is a handicraft, the process of making the product must go through many stages; from initial shaping to finishing, every stage requires carefulness and creativity. Making a product similar to the original is not difficult, but to convey the soul and spirit to the product is not something that every craftsman can do. In addition to talent, craftsmen must be properly trained in school or undergo a long apprenticeship in craft villages to be able to create sophisticated, unique products that satisfy customers.
Pointing at the pile of wood in front of the yard, Mr. Dung added: Those are the "orders" of my facility this year. More than 30 tree stumps of all kinds were brought in since the beginning of the year; some customers asked us to make statues of Arhat, Four Sacred Animals, Lions Playing with Balls; some customers also wanted to carve in Western art styles such as statues of Venus, babies... Most of the wood carving establishments in Vinh city are small-scale, each establishment usually has only 1-2 artisans and a few assistants, and to have skilled workers, we often have to go back to our hometown to find them and bring them here to start a business together...
Nowadays, when people's economic life is improved, the demand for and taste for wooden carvings in interior decoration is increasingly changing and popular. Most of the wood carving establishments do not have names or signs, but thanks to the introduction of connoisseurs to each other, they are always full of orders.
According to Mr. Nguyen Van Tuan (hometown)
Depending on the difficulty of the pattern, the wood material, the labor cost and the customer's "like" we give the price. The cost of a countryside landscape painting with a length of 1.8m and a width of 1.2m, the customer has to pay no less than 30 million VND; or a set of tables and chairs made from rosewood roots, carved with the image of a tiger and an eagle with the content "Heroes meeting" at the end of last year cost 20 million VND, but up to now the price has increased to about 25 million VND. And the workers are also paid according to their skill level, skilled workers are paid from 200,000 - 250,000 VND/day, unskilled workers (specialized in cleaning, polishing products...) are paid from 80,000 - 100,000 VND/day.
Saying goodbye to the wood carvers, we could not help but admire the hands and minds of the artisans who contributed to creating beautiful works, honoring the national carpentry profession.
Ngoc Anh
