Wood Carving in Folk Art

Video Transcript

"my name is Husain Abdul Alim and I am here to tell you all about wood carving. It is a folk art. I like to think of myself as a folk artist rather than doing African art, which I really don't do African art because I have never been to Africa. But anyway, and it is evolving, if you change, constantly changing every kind of new piece of wood that you catch, piece, you know you can come up with a different expression. You can change the eyes a little bit, you don't open them or you do open them, you open the mouth and you put an expression line here, there and it just changes the personality, the character and sometimes it pops up looking like one of your relatives or Elvis Presley, or James Brown and these pieces usually sell right away. So, that is about it for the history of it. Our philosophy is that whatever it is it is. You know, I can perhaps and I know I can do you, you give me a picture of yourself with enough time. We select some wood, I can give you a profile or a pictorial character of yourself and just the definitions of your eyes and your mouth. But, I really don't like to work that way, I like to work freelance, I like to, whatever pops out, pops out. Sometimes I will sit it down, the next day I will come in and I will come some place else. So most times I work with two or three, four or five pieces at a time."