Wooden Wonders / "Carving Out a Passion"

so if i get you just to say your name

the name of your shop

and where your shop's located my name's

chris gerald trotter

and my shop's the wooden wonders and uh

it's located in nashville indiana

i'm a carpenter slash carver when you're

doing

finished crumbs you're learning what you

have to take out like a negative

of what the shape is you're figuring out

what that's going to be and you're

cutting that away

so your mind kind of gets used to that

idea you know

kind of like an exercise that you can

build over time

with the trim carpentry i'd have left

over an oil pose so at home i just

started

trying to start shaping it with the

drain it just kind of you know i got my

own little

carving bug you know i thought man i'm

starting to figure this out so i just

got home and i just started messing with

it the first thing i made was like a dog

after that i mean i was just kind of

every day i just tried to do something

i mean you could pretty much use

anything white pine won't last as long

i mean if somebody's asking for

something expensive then i'm gonna do it

and some

i mean i use hardwoods the most because

they're prettier

a lot of times during recessions and

depressions

a lot of inspiration comes out in 07

when the housing market

the crash you know there was really no

sense in doing any

i couldn't even really have there were

no houses to even

build so i just opened the shop during

the national week

because up until that point i was really

good at it and i did a lot but i

wouldn't really try to make money off of

it

it's almost like god's just like guiding

you your hand

it's like one day you might be like

right on fire and your vision just kind

of opens up for you

you're not a man you're sitting there

you're listening to music and all of a

sudden you just

it's like thank you jesus thank you for

giving me this ability that's all i can

say i mean i don't even know how i'm

doing it

if you take time off you regress you

know so life's hard you know you got

kids you got

all this stuff going on throwing at you

every time that you

have to take time off you're not doing

it you gotta battle back in there the

next day

you might lose it all again and you

might not even get it back for three

months

unless you're doing it every day and all

of a sudden you get it again

because the more you go the better you

get

[Music]

i mean you just gotta believe yourself

you know i mean it's like once you

get this far you're like you make sure

you

you grab hold of everything that you're

learning

and bring it with you

i'm doing more expensive carbon down to

so i've done 14 foot owls i've done

14 foot wine bottles mickey and the

beanstalk

like 20 foot high with a beanstalk going

up

babe ruth swinging you know home run

we've done

carvings for a woman that had breast

cancer and she wanted a carving out in

front of her house

it was just some flowers going around

the tree

some vines i think we put a couple birds

in there and then

just the big ribbon on the front of it

representing breast cancer

a lot of times we'll do a really big

carving and then a few minutes later

we'll find out

the guy that the woman that had his

carbon and passed away

the significant other just totally like

it just does send to

the carving it was just like so special

to them you know so

things like that are really fulfilling

you know

[Music]

it's it's totally relaxing to me i can

influence

people you know i can put a smile on

someone or

you know just generally influencing them

emotionally through things

and being able to make

you know a statement you know what i

mean being able to

leave my mark

[Music]

this is my passion you know who knows

i'm

if if the carpentry would have kept

going well then i may never

have ever found this realm

that i found you know so sometimes like

i said it takes

a dip in your life to find you know what

you're really supposed to be doing right

you