David Calvo - Calvo Woodworking
Walking into an artist’s studio is like entering a sacred sanctuary. It’s almost as if we’re trespassing. What we do not appreciate is that most artists welcome the inquisitive viewer. Whether the artist is working at an easel, throwing a pot or, in the case of wood and bronze sculptor David Calvo, hovering over a coat of arms, carving tools in hand, we may be momentarily breaking their concentration, yet we’re creating an opportunity, we’re ushered into their sanctuary, and what springs forth is an intense conversation into their studies, their passion
and their incessant drive to create. And Calvo has much to say.
Calvo is as gifted a conversationalist as he is a sculptor. Amidst a vast array of carving tools and projects in various stages of design and completion, Calvo spoke with pride and conviction of the path that led to his current life as artist, educator and devout Cape Ann resident. Deeply immersed in the field of sculpture and woodcarving, Calvo recognized early on which path his life would take. It was during his philosophy studies at UMass where he discovered that working with his hands offered relief from the intensity of his classes. A friend’s borrowed set of carving tools proved revelatory and thus began Calvo’s lifelong journey of balancing his artistic and intellectual pursuits.After graduating with a degree in philosophy from UMass, he found his first job at a sign carving studio in Boston. More than a decade later, Calvo returned to academia, Boston University’s Divinity School, where he “focused on how ancient civilizations used symbols as an organizing force for the individual, as they relate to themselves, each other as a community and to the forces of nature,” he writes.
Outside Calvo’s window, the sun illuminated Gloucester Harbor. Inside, Calvo was equally as illuminated as he described his extraordinary pedigree of instructors and mentors. An educator himself for many years, Calvo embodies the patience and wisdom of his teachers, having been a serious student. Simply put, Calvo trained with the best at Cascieri diBiccari, a renowned sculpture studio based in Boston, Massachusetts, established in 1952 by artists Arcangelo Cascieri and Adio diBiccari. Their workshop, located near the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), specialized in wood, stone, metal, and terracotta sculpture. The impact diBiccari and Cascieri had on Calvo cannot be underestimated. Cascieri, a brilliant woodcarver, and diBiccari, a sculptor who studied under the head of the sculpture department at the MFA’s Museum School, passed their exceptional training and knowledge on to their protégé. In Calvo, they found a highly receptive student—immersed in the craft, eager to learn, and intrigued by the spiritual nature of carving, influenced by his divinity studies at university. “He [Adio] was like a second father to me,” Calvo said, “and my hands do as he taught them.” Calvo continued his training with German carver Frederic Brunner and woodcarver Jimmy Lohmann, both of whom, like Calvo, had a natural affinity for carving chisels. He later ventured into high-end custom furniture design with prestigious Boston-area firms and traveled extensively across Europe to observe how different cultures approach woodcarving and sculptural design firsthand.
Working as a furniture maker gave him insights that later shaped his teaching. Calvo knew early on that his life would include teaching. “One day I said to myself, all I’m doing is making boxes. If it’s a chest of drawers, it’s a box inside of a box inside of a box. If it’s a bed, it’s a rectangle. Curve lines put me in a whole different orbit. When I teach my classes, I talk about the early craftsmen, because they were not only good cabinetmakers, they were also good woodcarvers. Cabinetry is all built on geometry—it’s mostly straight lines. Wood carving introduces curve lines, so you’re creating contrast between structure and fluid form Curve lines and straight lines. The curve lines make the straight lines look nicer, and the straight lines contrast to make the curve lines look nicer. So, whenever you’re creating any type of artwork, I tell my students that you want to put night and day into the same thing.”
Calvo’s résumé and accolades run deep—he’s particularly proud of his restoration carving at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre. “They renovated the whole theater, and they said we’re not putting the wood carving out for bid,” he explains. “The wood carving is assigned to you. Whoever wins the contract has to work with you, because we want it done right.” Yet Calvo also finds profound contentment in his Gloucester studio, his Cape Ann community, and sharing his knowledge with students—and fascinated visitors. His students have traveled to him from as far away as South Korea. “‘My father just retired,’ a voice on the other end of the phone once said. ‘He was working for the Korean shipbuilding industry.…He said he’s always wanted to take a wood carving class from you. The only problem is he doesn’t speak English.’ And I said, that’s fine no problem. Send him over. I’ll teach him with my hands. ‘You sure about that,’ the son asked? No problem at all. So, he came in here, with very little English, but I showed him with my hands, because it’s a tacit skill. It’s like a violin player, where the simplest thing can change everything, but it has to be hand to hand to hand, which was the real value of the apprenticeship system. Because a student could watch the hands of whoever was the trained professional and see things that the professional can’t articulate because it’s so subconscious. But you have to see it. You have to be near those set of hands.” As Calvo watched diBiccari.
It’s a challenging art form. One of discipline, intense concentration and precision. “In sculpture, we have very few things that we can use. You can count them on your hands,” Calvo admits. “So, you have to know them really well, and you have to push them as much as you can. We live in a world of contrast. We have night, day, hot, cold, land, water.… We have to hold both those worlds in our hands. So, if you want to catch somebody’s attention with a piece of artwork, you have to have both of those elements. That’s why we [revere] Michelangelo, still to this day, he was a master at contrast.”
After forty-five years of mastering contrast himself, Calvo is surrounded by projects, personal and commissioned, that he works on simultaneously, as creative bursts strike, yet always prioritizing the client or student. “Somebody once asked me, ‘What’s your inspiration?’ I said, ‘a deadline.’ The deadline inspires me because then I have to focus right in on it and move it through to the finish line. I have hesitated in the past from doing my own things, but I’m at a certain point where you just have to throw caution to the wind a little bit and just start to do that.”
