David Esterly on the Lost Carving

Woodcarver David Esterly talks about the art and craft of carving wood. He is the foremost practitioner of Grinling Gibbons’s forgotten technique, which revolutionized ornamental sculpture in the late 1600s with its spectacular cascades of flowers, fruits, and foliage.  When fire at Henry VIII’s Hampton Court Palace destroyed a Gibbons masterpiece, Esterly was asked to replace it. He tells the story of that challenge in The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making, and explores the connection between creativity and physical work.