ATDTDA (2): Whittling (was Arkansas toothpick)

[Mark Kohut]

this just reminded me----he is whittling a locomotive! a Bad Thing in Pynchon's world of ATD.

Ya Sam <takoitov at hotmail.com> wrote:  >"Say," it occurred to a large and criminal-looking individual who had been 
>whittling an image of a locomotive from a piece of firewood with one of 
>those knives known throughout the prisons of our lands as an Arkansas 
>toothpick, "you're not of the vegetarian persuasion, I hope" (p. 31)
>

"Throughout the 19th century, men carried pocketknives to repair farm tools, 
for use while hunting or fishing, or to fashion simple household containers 
and utensils. After a long day's work or seasonal periods of inactivity, 
some turned their knives toward whittling to relax. While some only whittled 
piles of shavings, others were inspired to shape wood into toys and 
decorative tokens. The objects they made wooden chains, caged balls, jointed 
pliers and puzzles served no useful function but challenged the whittler's 
skill. Today collectors and scholars recognize the imaginative power of 
these unique objects and value them as folk art.

Wooden puzzles, caged balls, and chains are common whittling designs that 
have their origins in a variety of sources. Swedish and Welsh love spoons, 
wooden chains from Europe and Africa, and Chinese carvings in ivory, such as 
puzzles, folding fans, and tao-ch`iu, a series of nested spheres, were 
brought to America through European settlers and other immigrants. Peddlers 
and itinerants, who often carved such objects in exchange for food and 
lodging, helped widen the spread of these whittled tokens. Sailors aboard 
whaling ships in the early to mid 19th century who whittled wood, whale 
teeth and bone into gifts for family members at home were another source for 
the spread of whittling motifs. One surviving example sporting typical wood 
whittling motifs is a bookcase from 1861 with caged balls carved by a sailor 
from Massachusetts (Mystic Seaport Museum).

Since the late 19th century, hobos have also been major proponents of 
whittling. Their independent, wandering lifestyle-hopping freight trains for 
free travel and seeking only temporary work- provided time for this leisure 
activity. In between jobs or resting for the night in wayside camps called 
"hobo jungles", imigrant men swapped stories and songs, and whittled sticks. 
The whimsical trinkets they made, usually chains and caged balls, were used 
to barter for food, or given as gifts. Whittling motifs were exchanged and 
spread widely both among the hobo community and the non-hobo community as 
they traveled.

During the American Depression of the 1930s, when widespread economic 
hardship and social change disrupted patterns of work and recreation, the 
homely pastime of whittling was among a variety of crafts promoted as a 
hobby by the government's recovery program to help foster business and 
community optimism. Through the Works Progress Associationís Art Project, 
woodworking and whittling classes for men and young boys were operated in 
settlement houses, YMCAs, high schools, museums, recreation halls, and 
granges. In addition, a wealth of "how-to" books and magazines such as 
Popular Mechanics, Popular Science Monthly, and Boy's Life emerged which 
published patterns and instructions for whittling projects. Organizations 
such as the Boy Scouts taught whittling skills and rewarded scouts with 
badges. Even knife manufacturers such as the Cattaraugus Cutlery 
manufacturing company sponsored whittling competitions targeted at the Boy 
Scouts. Their motive was two-edged; to get boys interested in whittling and 
thereby stimulate the sale of pocketknives. Suddenly, the challenge of 
creating whittling "stunts" was discovered by thousands of would-be 
whittlers. Those who never before had created objects by hand developed new 
skills and honed a personal approach to whittling, bringing endless 
variation to this simple art.

The most common forms of ball-in-the-cage whimsies contain one ball while 
more complex forms include multiple balls and multiple cages. Whittled fans, 
consist of a series of thin fan-shaped blades sliced along the length of a 
wood block and require soaking in water to soften the wood and reduce the 
tendency to split and crack when the individual fan blades were cut through. 
The cut blades were then separated by gently pulling and twisting them apart 
to create an open fan shape."

http://www.brandywinemuseum.org/news_print/news006_print.html


"... Tramp Art is also a wanderer's art form: so again, there are no written 
records of the carvers' work. The stories of this art form became the facts; 
the misconceptions became the truths. There were no rules for constructing 
the pieces; materials were whatever the carver had available; decorations 
were whatever he could produce or find. Within the context of his own 
imagination, experience, and abilities, the carver assimilated what he saw 
with what he had to work with. He then translated and created what he saw 
into works of art by using his pocketknife and the ever-present cigar box. "

http://www.folkartisans.com/sup/tramhist.html

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