There’s a sensuality in the way Roger Young handles a piece of wood, in the gentleness of his touch and the way his fingers work with its natural curves
Master Carver Roger Young breathes new life into the centuries-old craft of wood carving. Words TONI YOUNGHUSBAND Photography HANS VAN DER VEEN
ROGER YOUNG’S WEATHERED HANDS roll the smooth black pebble gently and evenly across the sunken belly of the fish, bringing a brilliant sheen to its dulled contours. ‘It’s the perfect tool for the job,’ he says, cradling the shiny stone in his palm, its simplicity incongruous among the thousands of rands worth of premier-quality chisels, saws, planes and clamps that line the walls of his light-flooded studio. It’s an odd place to witness the creation of a fish. Beyond the studio walls the midday sun bakes the dusty scrubland of the Klein Karoo; we’re hundreds of kilometres from the nearest ocean. ‘I suppose my fascination with the prows of Viking boats leads me back to the sea,’ Roger muses, ‘their craftsmanship was unbelievable.’ Mermaids slither up his table legs, waves curl magically along the edges of fireplace surrounds and here and there, a bare-breasted maiden strikes a bold pose. The sea has seeped into every corner of Roger’s work, and so have the stars, influenced by the enormous skies above his rural home. But there are also leopards, lizards, crucifixes and even an otter carved into the cherry wood, rare imbuia, oak, rosewood and yellowwood that he’s crafted for clients. It was the work he did for First Rand’s GT Ferreira that catapulted Roger from artist to superior bespoke craftsman. Tokara, Ferreira’s estate on Franschhoek’s Helshoogte pass,
boasts a 6m x 4m mantelpiece carved from cherry wood. The detail is exquisite. ‘I took inspiration from the farm, using elements from it to create the design… the otters, the bloukoppe (chameleons), the vineyards. And after that my career flew,’ he says. His is the kind of big break artists dream about. A Durban-born surfer dude, Roger studied fine art and metal sculpture at the universities of Johannesburg and Cape Town but struggled to find post-graduation employment. ‘I built swimming pools, taught at a Waldorf school, sold wooden bowls door-todoor… anything to survive.’ Then a friend asked him to build a bed and a cupboard and that led to a hand-cut dining-room table. Roger’s work eventually caught the eye of fifth generation art dealer Trent Read, who commissioned a table for the Everard Read gallery in Johannesburg. ‘I got a lot of commissions after that.’ It was interior designer Marilyn McDowell who matched Roger’s talent with Tokara’s décor needs and today his client list reads like Forbes magazine’s eagerly-anticipated World’s Richest issue – Rothschild, Slack, Paul Harris... Marc Chagall’s granddaughter, Meret Gruber-Meyer, has two splendid framed mirrors carved by Roger in her three-storeyed home on Ile de Cite in Paris. Again the incongruity – across an ocean, Roger’s work lies in the shadow
of Notre Dame; here in his studio it is the shadows of the majestic Swartberg mountains that steal the light. His studio is one end of a 100-year-old schoolhouse that he discovered while taking photographic stills of the landscape for filmmaker Manie van Rensburg. There was no electricity, no water and precious little archictectural distinction about the derelict building, but like the raw wooden planks he works with, Roger saw its inner beauty. An adjoining photographic gallery (he’s also a professional photographer) is dwarfed by an imbuia armoire, handcrafted by Roger using traditional joinery techniques. ‘It’s very difficult to find imbuia now. This is probably the only one of these I’ll ever make,’ he says, opening its huge doors to reveal a multitude of drawers and shelves. It’s the kind of piece you imagine being passed down through generations − breathtaking in both size and workmanship. Artisanal crafts are trending on every level right now and there are thousands of entrepreneurs producing bespoke goods. Roger’s intricate carving puts him a head above the rest. ‘As I work, it takes on a life of its own,’ he says, running his hands through the ‘hair’ of a mermaid. ‘Wood is a very giving medium.’ For more information, call 044 213 3100 or email everyoung@crysp.co.za.
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