Summary

Bag of woodchips made and used by Eva Schubert in 1996. These chips were collected from the floor of Eva Schubert's studio in Nunawading. They are the wastage from her carving and sculpting and were made from chiselling into timber. The woodchips are allowed to accumulate in her studio since they are used to fuel the pot belly stove and keep her warm whilst working in winter.

Eva Schubert was born in the northern German part of the former Czechoslovakia in 1922. After a time as refugees in post war Europe she and her husband lived in Bavaria until immigrating to Australia in 1955. It was in Australia that Eva first began to carve, learning from her husband who was a wood worker who had trained under a master craftsman. After her husband died she took over the business and increasingly developed her own style.

Physical Description

Bag of woodchips in a variety of sizes and types of timber. Woodchips are the wastage of the wood carving process.

Significance

Comments on Significance
This bag of woodchips is part of a collection of tools and materials, which form part of the Artistic Practice collection. They deepen our understanding of the artworks and artists represented in a number of ways. They highlight the importance of the process underlying the artworks and render this process more visible. In this way they contextualises the art object, not simply as an aesthetic object but as a social history object created intentionally out of a specific process. The tools also stand as testament to the artist as a worker, ie creation through effort and skill. They enable us to explore the relationship between the worker and their tools of trade, the symbolism and meanings which come to be attached to certain tools, and the employment of objects to create other objects.

More Information