Born from the Sea — The Story Behind My Hand Carved Wood Sculptures
I did not plan to become a sculptor. But twenty years at sea — on three boats I built myself — taught me everything I needed to know about working with my hands. This is the story behind Studio Artesano Lunarejo and why every hand carved wood relief sculpture I make starts with the ocean.
A Life Built by Hand
I planned to sail. For twenty years, that is what I did. Three boats, all homebuilt. I drew the lines, cut the frames, laid the planks, and put them in the water. Then I sailed them — across oceans, into anchorages that had no names on tourist charts, through weather that made every decision matter.
When you build a boat by hand, you learn something that cannot be taught in a classroom: the difference between a thing that works and a thing that merely looks like it works. The sea finds every weakness. A bad joint in a hull frame does not stay hidden. You either built it right, or you find out.
That lesson never left me.
From the Ocean to the Forest
After twenty years on the water, I came ashore in Uruguay. Specifically, in Valle del Lunarejo — a national park in the interior, remote, off-grid, and measurably free of electromagnetic fields. No cell towers. No industrial noise. The instruments read zero. It is one of the cleanest environments left on this continent.
I built a studio here. I named it Studio Artesano Lunarejo.
The transition from boat-building to wood sculpture was not a leap. It was a continuation. The same hand that shaped a hull frame now shapes a wave in Alamo wood. The same eye that read a sea state now reads the flow of a relief form. The same question applies: did I build it right, or will the work find out?
Why Every Piece Is a Wave Form
The wave form is not a decorative choice. It is the form I know best.
Twenty years on the ocean teaches you that water is not chaotic — it is highly organized. Waves follow Fibonacci progressions. The curves that form when deep-ocean swell hits shallow water — the shoulder, the face, the trough — repeat the same proportional relationships you find in a nautilus shell, in the spiral of a galaxy, in the structure of a human ear.
I carve these proportions into Alamo wood. Local White Poplar, sourced here in Uruguay. The material is light but stable. The grain runs long and even. It holds crisp edges on the wave crests and smooth transitions in the troughs.
Each hand carved wood relief takes between 55 and 75 hours. No CNC. No shortcuts. The hand leaves a record in the wood that a machine cannot replicate — small variations in pressure and angle that catch light differently depending on where you stand, what time of day it is, what season the light is coming from.
I finish every piece with natural lanolin and local beeswax. Nothing synthetic touches the wood.
The Part Most People Do Not Expect: Subtle Energy Placement
Before I place a piece, I dowse the space.
I trained in radionics under Nick Franks, the designer of the LRI-ULTRA — a Coherent Energy Transfer Instrument used for analysis and treatment of subtle energy fields. I have worked with dowsing and biogeometry for years alongside that practice.
These are not beliefs. They are tools.
A space has an energetic structure that exists independently of its interior design. Underground water, geopathic stress lines, crossing points in the Hartmann and Curry grids — these are measurable and mappable by someone trained in radiesthesia. Placing a wood wall sculpture on a geopathic stress line does not serve the space, regardless of how good the carving is.
So I locate the clean zones first. The sculpture goes there. The work does not end when the carving does.
For collectors and interior designers who want this service, it is available. For those who do not, the piece still arrives as a precisely built object, correctly proportioned, hand-finished, and built to last.
What Comes Next
This blog follows the work as it happens — new pieces, design decisions, the process from 3D model to finished carving, and writing on the subtle energy side of the practice.
If you are considering a hand carved wood sculpture for a specific wall, write to me. Send the dimensions and a photograph. I will tell you what format fits and whether the space needs assessment.
All correspondence: studio-artesano-lunarejo@pm.me
The studio is in Uruguay. Pieces ship internationally.