chip carving of a line of music with birds and flowers

“Note of Longing”: A carving after Conrad Beissel

Eternal apprenticeshipHistorical Miscellany
chip carving of a line of music with birds and flowers
“Note of Longing,” 2026. Chip carving in basswood. For more about my carving visit woodwork.davidwalbert.com.

I’ve long said that any work of art that requires from the outset an accompanying statement to be understood is a poor job of art: if you have a point to make, write an essay. And so I would be content to let the carving above stand on its own. You’ve got music, and flowers, and birds singing—it says love pretty clearly, I hope. (Unless those birds are in fact arguing… it’s hard to tell with birds. Though that might say love just as well. I suppose it depends what they’re arguing about.)

But this carving has roots, and it came about by a fairly complicated process, which may further illuminate it (pun intended).

9. The unplayable banjo

Forty ThanksgivingsObservances

For the unplayable banjo hanging safe upon the wall, as silent as the bricks. Its black head sculpted into a pompadour, moussed to stone; the keys like hairpins holding nothing, never tensed. Strings of shiny copper, stiff as necks, singing to the eye but not the ear. The bridge cleverly askew like skeptical eyebrows. Cloudy swirls like prints of ghostly fingers on a silver drum that’s never rattled, never thrilling, never made to shiver at another’s touch, unresponsive to another’s rhythm. The banjo held on no one’s lap, in no one’s arms. Safe and alone upon the wall.