Yes another blog post about Morocco, but its because we missed some things on the blog that just couldn’t be left behind, like carving with your feet for example 
Every time we made our way to the central medina of Marrakech, we would pass a small woodcarving shop. This isn’t your ordinary wood carving shop, rather an out of the ordinary foot carving emporium. What do I mean when I say foot carving, well it’s kind of hard to put into words…
The artist was there everyday, making various trinkets with his unique foot carving technique.
As you can see your foot is operating a carving tool, while your right arm is manually rotating the wood with some sort of bow, offering the possible shapes you can achieve while throwing a pot.
You are probably wondering where is the action or where is the humor, well here it is….the Sharples kids took this whole foot carving thing into their own hands…I mean feet!
I was up first. I sat on the small operating stool for the advanced contraption, and as Cari would say, my “nervous face” kicked into gear. The owner of the shop practically squeezed me into the necessary position and I tried to hold it for as long as possible, until he readjusted my mistake. He handed me the bow and the carving tool. He showed me the position and I started cranking.
Getting ready.
Getting the hang of it.
Right away, the piece of wood I was presumed to be carving fell off the wood spinner – I most likely had my left foot off a millimeter or two. After many minuets of struggling, the shop owner noticed after a career of doing this, that carving with your feet is tedious, and took pity on me. He helped me place the carving tool while I repeatedly pumped the bow back and fourth. After my arm was ready to burn into a pile of ashes, my amazing piece of art work was finished.
This is the piece I completed!
I compared the one that he gave me as a gift and the one I made – the moral of the story is: Woh, It’ll take way more than one lesson to not make your wood carving not look like it was a stick chewed by your dog, with a crooked pattern.
After my turn, Yve was up!
Then Wescott…
Then Tuck….Jones bailed on us and went back to the Riad
The artist took all of our wood pieces and finished them into chess pieces for a complete chess game. PopPop loves wood carving so he stuck around in awe of the artist’s precision and speed. PopPop, are you going to try some foot carving in Mattapoisett?
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