Name: Stuart Kaufman
Occupation: Woodcarver
Background: Kaufman, 44, earned a B.S. in business administration from Roosevelt University in 1969. Despite that degree and a stint as a property manager for several years, his true interest has always been art. Today he earns his living as a woodcarver and supplements his income by raising llamas. Born in Chicago, he lives in unincorporated Bartlett with his wife of 15 years and their 4-year-old daughter.
Years in present position: 5
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I always liked art. It was the one thing I always excelled in in school. But I believed what I was told, which was that you go to college and you get your degree in whatever makes the most money regardless of what your aptitudes are. So I just didn`t do what I should have done.
All the time I was in school I was sculpting. But I never studied art formally. To this day I wish I had gone to the American Academy of Art and learned to draw because I envy people who can draw. I`m amazed at them. I never learned how, so I sculpt.
While I was working in property management, I was sculpting, too, as a hobby and for presents. People would say they liked something I`d made, and I would say: ”Okay. Take me out to dinner, and it`s yours.” Something like that.
Then I went to work for a company out here that does model-making. They make prototypes of household appliances. I did this for the purpose of learning how to use machinery and power tools. This took the place of an apprenticeship, which I might have had in Europe. You`d apprentice as a sculptor for seven years in Germany.
Most of the different things I do, I got into because people asked me for them. First, someone suggested I try carving doors. Carving signs never occurred to me until people started asking me for signs. Then someone asked me for gold-leafing and I didn`t know how to but I did it anyway, and now I do lots of it.
Now I`m trying to move back to pure sculpture and architectural carvings and mantels because with signs I`m competing with sand blasters, which are a lot less costly. On the East and West Coasts there is a lot of interest in handcarved wood signs and gold-leafed signs, but in the Midwest it`s almost unknown.
My advertising is done almost completely through word of mouth. I used to go to art fairs, but it`s pretty hard to sell a carved door at an art fair. Word of mouth and handing out my cards to lumber yards and building contractors works much better. I don`t advertise, not even in the phone book. I probably should, but phone books cost so much money to advertise in. And which one do I pick, Bartlett or Chicago or what?
In the beginning I got ideas by looking through tons of art magazines and art books. That`s how I learned how to see, artistically. By seeing what other artists did. Quite often ideas just pop into my head, but also it`s a matter of what I like. I just sort of home into an idea, if there`s a broad spectrum of choices, by what feels right to me.
And then people ask me to do certain things. For instance, some people came to me because a tree that had been in front of their house since they were born was going to have to be cut down. It was seven feet in diameter, and they wanted to make a table out of it. I carved a picture of the original tree on the slab, from a photograph. They didn`t know what they wanted, so I just suggested this.
I`m most proud of a door I made that`s pretty innovative. It`s like a jigsaw puzzle put together. It`s stained glass and cedar and mahogany and oak and cherry woods. It`s a jigsaw puzzle of a tree with a stained-glass sun in it. I only do something like that if someone wants it.
I`ve gotten calls for gargoyles to hang over a house and for the plaques that go on the backs of yachts and say the name of the boat and the port it comes from. One person wanted to pay tribute to a masseuse, so I sculpted two hands in ceramic. That was one of the most unusual assignments I`ve had.
When I do a scene on a door, it`s usually of the place as seen from a distance. I have the door made, so I know it`s solid wood and the right kind of wood for carving-walnut, cherry or mahogany. I go and look at the house if they want to go with that idea, which is what I like. To me it looks right to have the front door with a picture of the whole scene of the house from a distance, down the road. It`s best if I can see the setting, and fortunately I`ve been able to do that. If someone called me from across the country, I`d ask for photographs. How long it takes to do a door like this depends on what`s being carved. I have to get the door milled, and then it takes from 30 to 100 hours to carve the scene.
I rarely make a mistake when I`m carving, and I haven`t ruined anything in the last 10 years. I`ve been fortunate. If it did happen, I would see what I could do to rearrange the sculpture to make it fit the mistake. Once my chisel chipped the wood a bit when I was carving something free-form on a toilet seat. I incorporated it into the relief sculpture on the toilet seat, and it looked much better.
It`s hard, sometimes, to tell the difference between a handcrafted piece and a factory-made piece because there are machines now that can do amazing things. I guess you`d look for randomness in the way it`s created and a certain amount of non-precision. You look at it, and if it feels like an inanimate object, then it`s done by a machine. But if it feels like more than an inanimate object, then it`s not done by a machine. Because an artist can put something into it, can put life into it, which a machine can`t do.
For charging (a fee), the goal is to make it based on time. But since I can`t accurately estimate that, I make it based on size and the type of wood. If I have to do oak, it will take a lot longer than any of the carving woods, such as mahogany, walnut or cherry. They`re softer and they`re better for carving. They don`t chip as much. I charge anywhere from 30 cents to $3 per square inch on a relief carving.
People seem to like oak right now, and they like it because it`s ”in.”
It doesn`t look good when it`s carved because the grain is so strong you can`t see the carving. Woods that I use for carving don`t have strong grains, so you can see the carving. But the fashion right now is for oak, and it`s certainly not the prettiest wood, by a long shot.
On a typical day we all wake up at about 6:30. I feed and take care of my llamas first. My wife is a CPA, and she takes our daughter to school on her way to work and I do whatever cleanup is necessary. Then I go upstairs to an unfinished room where I do my work. I put on public radio and listen to that while I`m working. When I use some of my power tools, I don`t hear anything- not the door, not the phone-because the tools make so much noise. When the weather is warm, I work out in my garage, which used to be the Bartlett Hunting Lodge before this house was built.
What I like about my job is being my own boss and setting my own schedule and making my own decisions. And I like to create. There are many jobs you can do where you don`t create anything. If you`re working in a store and you set up a display and five minutes later it sells, it isn`t there anymore. And when you clean your house, it gets dirty again. But when I create a piece of art, it doesn`t matter who has it. I still own it. In my mind, there`s nothing they can do to take it away from me. No matter where it is or who has paid for it, it`s still my creation. In the beginning I hated to give things up, but that attitude disappeared when I realized this.
The down side of this job is that what I create is not a high-demand item. Normally you produce what`s needed and wanted and there`s not a great need and want for architectural carvings and carved signs.
To any young person who is interested in art, my best advice would be to get into the appropriate education and then find out what`s needed in the area you`re in and if there`s no market for it, go to a place where there is such a market. I talked to one of the best-known blacksmiths in the country and asked him how to survive as a craftsman, and he said: ”You leave the Midwest. Either go to New England or go to California.” People are very practical and level-headed in the Midwest. We`re different than anywhere else. Sculpture is not a necessity here; it`s art.
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