The carver, and the carved
Long lines, sharp cuts
From the workshop in Hornindal in Nordfjord, in the municipality of Volda on Norway's west coast, a noble art and a venerable craft reach out across the world: baroque and rococo, acanthus and dragon, figurative work, relief and portrait. All drawn by hand and cut by hand — the way the best is made.
Rolf Taraldset
Rolf learned the craft from his father, Bjarne, who was himself a professional carver and had apprenticed with Daniel Hagerup, a sculptor trained in Oberammergau. The training was taken at the Hjerleid school of woodcarving at Dovre, the principal seat of the trade in the country, with both journeyman’s and master’s certificates.
The whole process is done by hand in the carving workshop on the forest property at Taraldset in Hornindal, from design and the choice of blank to carving and the final finish. The aim lies closer to the authentic than to ornament: a relief that draws you in, a figure that seems about to step out of the wood.
Beyond the making, the red thread through it all is the passing on. Around fifteen hundred students have taken part in various carving courses over the years, widely across Norway and Scandinavia, and abroad in the United States, among them Vesterheim, the Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa. Rolf helps shape the trade itself, too, leading the examination board and sitting on the national curriculum committees.
The work spans all the classic styles: baroque, rococo, acanthus, dragestil; portrait, relief and sculpture. The classical is the very foundation of the craft: it has to sit in the hands and the spine — and once it does, that foundation flows easily into whatever it is applied to.
