AROUND HOME : Whittling

OUR COLLECTIVE definition of whittling has been shaped--like so much of our cultural “history”--by Hollywood. Whittling, in the movies, is the systematic mutilation of a piece of wood by an old codger, usually in a rocking chair, who uses only one repetitive cut--much like sharpening a pencil--and ends up with a weird-looking, gnarly toothpick.

In reality, whittling is a respected form of wood carving, which is itself a variation of sculpture--real art that requires an eye for wood and a hand for form. When pressed for a precise definition of whittling, one wood carver said that a whittler uses only knives, while wood carvers wield knives, chisels and other tools.

Whittlers and carvers alike turn out sophisticated shapes and folk-art characters, from cowboys on horseback to smooth, sensual nudes and those fascinating items called Ball in a Cage, the carver’s equivalent of the boat in a bottle. Still, and perhaps inevitably, much of the wood art on display at the many shows around the country is in the shape and spirit of the Old West.

Piecemakers Country Store in Costa Mesa offers what may be the only whittling instruction in Southern California, a two-day class, on June 7 and 14. The store also has a Whittling Bee on the first and third Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. Wood-carving shows in Southern California include those at the Kern County Fairgrounds in Bakersfield, today, May 14, and at Balboa Park in San Diego, May 27-28.

Information on wood-carving supplies and shows plus photographs of work are available in two publications: The Log, published monthly, available with membership in the California Carvers Guild, P.O. Box 1195, Cambria, Calif. 93428, $15 per year; and Chip Chats, bimonthly, with membership in the National Wood Carvers Assn., 7424 Miami Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio 45243, $8.