The sheds

How the work is actually made

Carvers work in open sheds, sitting on wood stumps. A carver holds the block with their feet and cuts it with a small adze and a file. There is no lathe, no bandsaw and no jig. The shape is found by removing material and nothing else.

When a carver finishes a piece it goes to the women of Wamunyu, who polish, paint and varnish it. Every piece the cooperative sells has passed through both pairs of hands.

The carver receives 80 percent of what the piece sells for. The remaining 20 percent runs the cooperative. A manager and a committee of seven master carvers make the decisions.

The society was registered in 1963 and now has over 2,000 members, roughly 70 percent of the people in the area. The hard woods are mahogany, rosewood and blackwood. The soft woods are yellow wood, jacaranda and mango. The cooperative takes part in the Good Wood campaign.