2019年经济学人 木雕艺术家大卫·埃斯特利(2)（在线收听）

For him, as for Gibbon, the limewood responded beautifully, as only limewood could. It was soft, almost oily, with a nutty smell that filled the workshop and a crisp zip under the gouge; pliable, kindly, magically white and forgiving of mistreatment, such as his necessary cutting across the short grain to mould the shape of an apple or a grape.

对他来说，对吉本来说，椴树的效果很美，只有椴树才能。它柔软，几乎是油腻的，带着一股坚果的味道，充满了整个车间，沟槽下面有一个脆的拉链；它柔韧，亲切，有着神奇的白色，可以对虐待施以宽容，比如他经过必要的削减通过短粒塑造一个苹果或葡萄的形状。

He had tried other woods, but found ash too hard, beech and birch thuggish. Its tolerance allowed it to be drastically undercut in Gibbons's style, with a gouge held like a pencil, until the wood was scarcely thicker than a petal or a feather and the piece filled with shadow and air. At that point he would add the selective exaggerations, a curl here, a bulge there, that would make a leaf look real, even though carved in wood.

他试过其他树林，但发现梣木太硬，山毛榉和桦木太凶狠。它的容忍度让它可以以吉本斯的风格进行大幅度的削边，像拿着铅笔一样去凿，直到木头比花瓣或羽毛厚不了多少，那片地方充满了阴影和空气。到了那个时候，他会选择性的添加夸张操作，这里一个卷曲，这里一个凸起，这会使一片叶子看起来真实，即使是在木头上雕刻。然后，除了像吉本斯做的那样，他会用荷兰草轻轻地摩擦木雕。

And then, leaving the piece bare except for gentle abrading with Dutch rush, as Gibbons would have done, he would set it aside to shine like ghostly marble with its own independent life. He never kept anything he made. Ever since he had sold a small mirror frame for 100 pound at a village fair, he had worked only to commission. He could not afford to do otherwise, for though his pieces eventually sold for six figures they were so time-consuming that he made only about 50 in his life. Carvers were starvers, he often said: an existence his comfortably middle-class parents in Akron, Ohio would have struggled to understand.

他会把它放在一边，让它像幽灵般的大理石一样闪耀，拥有自己独立的生命。他从不保留自己的任何作品。自从他在一个乡村集市上以100英镑的价格卖了一个小镜框后，他的工作只是为了赚取佣金。他负担不起别的方式，尽管他的作品最终能卖到六位数，但是它们太耗费时间了，他在一生中只做了大概50个。他经常说，雕刻家都是些饥民：他在俄亥俄州阿克伦的中产阶级父母过着舒适的生活，他们很难理解这种生活。