[Woodcarver] WOOD CARVER FROM INDIA

[Ivan Whillock]

The recent discussion under the thread, "wood carver from India," was very instructive.  I appreciate Sarfaraz expressing his opinions, along with  those who contributed their points of view as well.  I'm glad that the "sparks" were kept to a minimum because some important issues were raised that are germane to my place as a professional woodcarver and to some international issues as well.

Clearly, one thing unites us all:  making a living at woodcarving is a tough gig.  Those of us who do make a living are probably more lucky than we are smart.
I know some brilliant artists who have given up on it.  In every country I've visited, and it's been quite a few, the carvers considered their work undervalued.  They all worked very hard to find ways to hold their prices down, to mass produce, so that they could compete.  If they worked alone they lost precious time and money in promotion.   If they worked through an agent or a gallery, they had to produce more than they could hope to sell in order to fill shelves and they had to give as much as 50% to the gallery.

Before I got going with church commissions,  I tried every which way to sell hand-carved European-style decorative carvings like those Sarfaraz excels in.  I visited interior decorators, furniture manufacturers, and trade shows.  Quality wasn't the question--price was.  One "top of the line" furniture manufacturer complimented me on my work and then showed me how he could attach a mass-produced "carving" to the furniture for pennies to my dollars.  The increase in quality, he claimed,  didn't offset the increase in price.  Most customers didn't notice or care about the difference in quality.  Many other manufacturers I visited created knock-offs and didn't even attempt to do original work.

Interior designers would give me projects on occasion, but even if I kept my prices low, the multiple mark-ups (everybody piles their cut onto the carver's original price) would make my work available to only the highest end projects which came along only rarely.

Even if I could import carvings for free, it would take a good deal of work and expense to sell them--catalogs, trade shows, personal visits.

Unfortunatley, I don't see that changing much in the near future.
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