My finished sculpture Dreamer. Second wooden portrait of my daughter. I wanted to carve the second portrait of my daughter. Trying to get another feeling to this portrait.

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This was my first time when I used elm tree for carving. Have to say it a great wood to carve. A little bit hard, but the surface looks so nice and allows you to do nice finishing touches.

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I love to make portraits. It is always challenging technical tasks, and there is always a lot of room to improve. But is not only a technical or mechanical task to produce an accurate copy of a model.

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When I was making this portrait is also forced me to look, touch and feel my daughter that way that is impossible in normal life. I look at my daughter’s face, try to understand them, try to capture the essence. The face also gives me hints from history. Is that forehead resembling my forehead and my father’s? Are there some traits in the overall shapes of face similar to my mother face? What does my mother see when she looks her granddaughter? Does she see traits of her mother or grandfather?

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Portraits also deal with time. This wooden portrait also goes through changes during the time, but those changes are slow compared to changes what people undergo. For me, this time element which is included in every portrait is also dealing with the deep question related to human life and our mortality.

Accepting and facing this mortality makes things witch you love the most even more important