Ian Agrell recently wrote a column for Ecclesiastical and Heritage World, a UK publication that serves the architectural heritage industries. In it, Ian points out six commonly held myths and fears about the woodcarving industry and then dispels them.
Here’s a brief excerpt:
Carving doesn’t have to be cost prohibitive. The key is figuring out as early as possible what your clients really want—and what they’re willing to spend. It’s no good getting two years into a project before realising the carving is out of the budget. I’ve seen this scenario before: The client panics and then settles for poor-quality decoration that fits the budget. But guess what? That bad decoration still cost a lot of money. Instead, budgeting issues can be solved early in the design stage by reducing the volume of decoration while maintaining its complexity, or by reducing its complexity and maintaining the volume.
Notice I never mentioned quality. Never sacrifice quality; you can still have carving that isn’t complex but that is still well-executed and true to the design intent.
Read the entire article here.