Being allowed to take wood carving lessons from a master wood carver. That is a rare opportunity in the Netherlands. Not many other craftsmen than Jan van Harskamp can restore a classic mantelpiece in a palace to its perfectly original state.
Learning the craft from him also creates a very special master-apprentice relationship. Jan has all his new students carve the same little flower from a square block of lime wood on the first course day. After that you are free. Jan doesn’t tell you what to do, but helps you realize your dream images. Even if he has to personally hack out your neatly looking eye, because an eye is not flat, but round.
Every Saturday is a celebration
Every Saturday is a celebration, going to ‘houterij De Specht’ in Zetten, surrounded by the tree nurseries of the Betuwe. When you open the door you are welcomed by the smell of freshly cut wood. Especially that subtle, slightly sweet smell of lime wood, caused by terpenes, is like a warm perfume. Then the crunching sound of the razor-sharp chisels of the other students going through the wood. Can a person be happier?
Further along my workbench sits Marieke, who is very precisely carving a chair seat the size of a postage stamp, the rushes perfectly woven together. Jan helps her get the legs of her old Dutch dining chair exactly even, so it doesn’t wobble. Neeltje makes an organically shaped bowl, which she puts in linseed oil with red cheeks of happiness. For Hans, who takes abstract sculptures by great artists as examples, Jan prepares outside in the courtyard with the chainsaw the first rough shapes in a heavy elm wood trunk. With the other Marieke he calculates the dimensions of an enormous picture frame that looks like a temple from antiquity, including round pillars. On the lathe that’s a few minutes’ work for Jan, to get a round bar from a square piece of wood, but Marieke is going to do it by hand.
“Hang that in the toilet”
The atmosphere in the workshop is relaxed, without any competition. Everyone gives each other advice, advanced students think along with the beginners when asked. Criticism is constructive. Jokes are never meant to be condescending. That moment when the hair of my wooden muse seemed hopeless and fellow student Dick said: “Maybe she’s having a bad hair day.” Priceless comment. And immediately a perfect title for my work, a detail of a bust I saw in the Beelden aan Zee museum in Scheveningen.
Dick himself also works freely and has been working on a music stand for his sheet music for years. Inspired by a bunch of grapes with leaves on the corner of a picture frame, he started on his own three-dimensional version, beautifully openwork. He doesn’t seem to need much advice from Jan anymore. It prompted me to ask: ‘Are you actually taking a course here?’. Got another spot-on answer back, with the necessary self-mockery: “Yes, what did you think? That I’m here on a therapeutic basis?”
Or that legendary story about the student who presented his sculpture at home. Upon which his wife judged: ‘Hang that in the toilet’. Jan’s good-natured comment: “The sculpture did look a bit gloomy.”
Christ looks at you with intense sadness
It must be these soft powers of Van Harskamp that create the relaxed atmosphere in the workshop. After graduating from Wageningen University as a forestry expert, he followed his heart and trained himself in the art of wood carving. Sometimes he almost casually shows something of his own commissions at the end of the day.
Then a Christ appears, who has lost two fingers in battle. It turns out to be a masterfully carved figure in boxwood, actually much more beautiful and detailed than the Sluter the Rijksmuseum is so proud of. That shiny ribcage. That loincloth that seems to be made of real fabric. The arms not spread wide, but held up, a posture that suits the religious community that commissioned this sculpture centuries ago. That gaze upward, so different from other Christ sculptures with closed eyes. This Jesus even has shiny eyes and looks at you with intense sadness. Jan gives him back two new, elegantly curved fingers with surgical precision. Those minuscule little nails. We all stand there admiring it.
On the website of the ‘houterij’ you can see Jan’s earlier major commissions. The case for an organ for Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge, with feathered angels. A copy of an enormous frame for the Roman Catholic Old Poor’s Office in Amsterdam with an enormous golden crown. Fine carving for the Naber organ in Wilp, classic curled leaf motifs, openwork. Three women, symbolizing Steadfastness, Justice and Prudence, for the Provincial House of Friesland. And the hall of a country house in the south of France is now guarded by a proud Neptune with trident, his wild long beard waving in the storm wind.
The restoration work for Het Loo Palace is not even on there yet. Neither are the recent years of student works. It just never gets done. Van Harskamp is busy. Not only on Saturdays does he open his workshop to students, but also on weekday evenings. He also gives guest lessons at the wood carver and woodworker’s paradise, the Baptist store in Arnhem, where you can choose from wall after wall of different chisels. Jan’s students never have trouble thinking of something for their birthday or for under the Christmas tree. Baptist has it.
Smooth like Gibbons or rough like Balkenhol?
My hair is progressing and is starting to look like something. But all those choices… Am I going to finish this sculpture as smooth as our ‘Master Sculptor’ Grinling Gibbons did, the pioneer in working with lime wood? With the risk of ‘sanding the wood dead’? And being busy for at least another year, with sandpaper and diamond files? Or do I choose the rough finish of German artist Stephan Balkenhol, who wants to show the flaky scars of his large chisels in the wood? Maybe something in between? Keep it rough but with a smooth golden headband, subtly hidden?
It’s quite a journey to find your own signature. And then those ten thousand hours of work you apparently need to become professional. Can I still manage that at my age? Do I have it in me? But I’m not the only senior who finds a new fulfillment in wood carving. I see quite a few peers in the wood workshop, as well as on the websites on the internet where woodworkers show each other their work. I even count slightly more women than men, but young people also come to Jan’s courses. Sometimes they have to be patient for a while, because there can be a waiting list.
Questions, questions, questions. But Jan is always there with advice and practical help. I ask how I can liven up a boring piece of hair on the side of my muse’s head. We look together at the photos I took at Beelden aan Zee, which have increasingly become a source of inspiration rather than an example. Jan chooses a ‘two/five’ gouge from the dozens of chisels on the workbench, puts it in the hair, and soon there’s a curl that tumbles and dances, as if my muse just went to the hairdresser for her wedding day. So natural. So lifelike. Wow!
