John Adamson- Tree Sculptor

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Alice & the Caterpillar

Todmorden, W Yorkshire

One of the joys of accepting a commission to carve a tree is that I get thrown the challenge of the tree and the commissioner's concepts or in this case all the different illustrations of Lewis Carrol's book. 

The caterpillars in all the illustrations have not been carvable, having things like long noses which would soon break off.      I designed my own caterpillar with a short nose, and a long tail that sweeps up to form a table to support the hookah.    The hookah pipe is kept close to the body so avoiding another weakness.   There was a convenient branch in just the right place to form Alice's head.     When the bark was removed  I found that the wood underneath was wave shaped and these made wonderful ripples for the hair

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