Teaching woodcarving at Nailsea school, near Bristol: carving a Green Man into a log of Ash wood

On the weekend before Christmas, I went back to Nailsea school to do some more woodcarving tuition. After teaching a very enjoyable session there previously, working with pupils at the school, I was looking forward to it!

This session was a little different as all of the people attending were adults and the session was partially funded by a local community group; the Nailsea Community Trust. We also had to carve in the art room instead of the outdoor DEN space, as the rain was pouring down outside. 

However, the tables in that room were at just the right height to carve (carver's benches are generally higher than joiner's benches). The hot drinks and snacks were also on hand courtesy of Rebecca Hollingdale, who runs the DEN project at the school and who organised the session.

The Green Man is such an intriguing image, open to such varied interpretation, that I always enjoy watching people carve them. We were using logs of Ash (Fraxinus excelsior), sourced  by the DEN project from recent woodland management work. 

Ash is very pleasant to work with when freshly-cut and green, but can be tough work to carve by hand once seasoned. It is also not particularly durable outdoors, but that could be an attractive feature for some people I'm sure - the image of the Green Man returning to nature.

After a brief safety talk and a few (hopefully) handy pointers about facial anatomy, the group started carving. Some people were quite happy to get stuck in, but others were more reluctant to start cutting in deeply. Sculpting a face can be quite daunting and I can completely understand that some people would feel a little nervousness and even frustration when setting out to do such a project. I've found that for many learners who feel a bit overwhelmed, the best thing to do is just to start carving, removing the outer bark at first to see where the process takes you.

Once everyone was into the flow of things, one of the most rewarding things about the day was seeing everyone starting to create unique and expressive sculptures. All of the faces were very different and by the end everyone seemed very happy with the carvings that they had produced. 

Some people used the differently-coloured inner and outer bark layers against the pale ash wood to make some very interesting designs.

Some faces seemed to show someone who was relaxed, others were much more dynamic with expressive tool marks left on them:

It was great to see all of the faces put together at the end (apart from one, as the person who carved it had to go home a bit earlier). I'm sure you'll agree that they look very interesting together, showing a few different interpretations of the image of the Green Man.

Revisiting the Green Man - a mysterious image from the past

The Green Man is a face that can be seen in many old churches and stately homes throughout northern Europe. The face has several basic forms, but is either made up of leaves, is sprouting leaves from eyes, ears and/or mouth or is sometimes simply a face peering out through vegetation, like these ones at St Mary Redcliffe in Bristol:

Mike Harding, in his Little book of the Green Man, points out that the name 'Green Man' was probably first used by Lady Raglan in 1939. We don't know what the medieval carvers who produced some of the finest examples would have called these faces.

We don't really know what they mean either, but the images are so powerful that they have persisted through time. They even, in many cases, escaped the stupid vandalism done to British church art by the Puritans.

In The Hidden World of Misericords, Dorothy and Henry Kraus suggest 'That so much underseat carving should have survived Protestant iconoclasm was no doubt due in large measure to the prevailingly secular subject matter'. These foliate faces are not obviously portraying Christian religious ideas either, which may be the reason that we can still appreciate so many of them today whether carved as misericords, roof bosses or elsewhere.

Hayman, in 'Church Misericords and Bench Ends' says that green men have 'often been misinterpreted as an indigenous pagan deity or as a spirit of nature. In fact green men represent sin and mortality.'

The Green Man also seems to hold a special fascination for carvers. In Understanding Woodcarving, John Foyle comments 'You may think we have enough of that fraternity around already. And, yes, the woodcarving world is certainly not short of pre-Christian sylvan dieties, or foliate men as they are sometimes called'. But the design is so strange and its origins so mysterious that carvers keep returning to it. In The Green Man: The Pitkin Guide, Jeremy Harte says that 'The Green Man was always a carver's device, whether in wood or stone. It is rare to find him in jewellery, illuminated books or stained glass'. Master carver Chris Pye, for one, has spoken of his fascination with the subject.

Similar faces can be seen carved on temples in India and there are even green cats, lions and snakes. In St John's chapel in St Mary Redcliffe church in Bristol, there is an animal sprouting leaves from its mouth hidden amongst the medieval roof bosses.

Image from http://stmaryredcliffe.co.uk/files/2014/08/St-Mary-Redcliffe-NW-tower-vaulting-report-revised-assembled-reduced.pdf

As with many such images, it's a bit hard to tell what kind of animal it is: Mike Harding thinks it is a dog, Jerry Sampson (in an interesting architectural report on these bosses) thinks it is more like a cow. Here is a more recent green dog carved on the end of a pew in St Newlyn's church in Cornwall:

Many Green Man faces are quite obviously men, with beards etc. but I haven't heard of many carvings of a Green Woman. Jeremy Harte also makes this point; 

'The real Green Lady, with foliage sprouting from her face or mouth, is hardly ever seen (although there is one at Sampford Courtenay church in Devon). At Kings Nympton church, also in Devon, there is a series of heads: all the male ones are Green Men, but none of the female heads are Green Ladies.'  

I wonder why?

Recently, I've been reworking a green man face carved in oak for 'Mayfest' in Bristol. It was okay, but didn't look exactly how I wanted it to, so I decided to recarve the eyes, nose and mouth. It was an interesting challenge, carving some fairly deep detail into an oak board only 10mm (²⁵/₆₄ inch) thick without going through. Here's how the face now looks:

This green man's face was carved on-and-off over four years from 1998 to 2002. It is not made from wood, but instead from meerschaum, a kind of stone which is prized for use in making pipe bowls. The carving isn't finished, as it still needs to have finishing wax applied. I'd also like to carve a stem for it, probably from cherry wood.

My own favourite Green Man is one that can be found in Bamberg cathedral in Bavaria. It is possibly one of the most well-known Green Man designs and dates to around the mid-thirteenth century. Some friends have commented that they think that the face is scary and it certainly has something quite powerful about it. As Jeremy Harte says, 'often the most beautiful ones are the most sinister.'

Image from: http://www.gargoylesandgrotesques.com/index.php?p=1_6_Photos

Demonstrating carving a Green Man from wood at 'Mayfest' on the Gloucester Road in Bristol

It was a beautiful sunny day yesterday and I spent it sitting on the pavement on the Gloucester Road in Bristol, carving a green man out of oak and chatting to passers-by.

A lot of younger spectators in particular were very keen to see how the carvings were done and there was a very jolly atmosphere, with the local shops putting out tables on the side of the road. In the afternoon, a morris group (see the comments below) came past with a huge 'Jack-in-the-Green', a foliage-covered effigy used since ancient times to celebrate the return of summer.

The green man plaque also turned out well and a finishing coat of furniture wax brought out the beauty of the oak grain pattern nicely. It will now go on show at Room 212 gallery on the Gloucester Road. 

After writing this, I reworked the Green Man carving a bit and you can see how it currently looks by visiting this post, which has some images of other Green Man carvings as well.