If you can dream it, classically trained wood carver Christen Dokk Smith can carve it, executing your vision or creating something wholly new from his imagination. Christen accepts commissions for private and public art, as well as corporate wood carving commissions, including decorative carving, portraiture, and sculpture.
Christen trained in the classical European way of carving, focusing on Viking, Medieval, Baroque, and Rococo carving in Oslo, Norway. He was invited to an apprenticeship at the Viking Ship Museum by Norwegian master carver Bjarte Aarseth, receiving his Diploma in Wood Carving via the museum’s partnership with the University of Oslo. As part of his apprenticeship, he also studied sculptural carving in England at the City & Guilds of London Art School. Later, Christen incorporated west coast design influences when learning from Nuu-chah-nulth master carvers in Tofino, BC on Vancouver Island, once he moved to Canada.
Here, on the Pacific Northwest coast, Christen connected more deeply with salvaged old-growth wood including Yellow Cedar, Western Red Cedar, and Alder, as well as Bigleaf Maple through the oneTree project at the Robert Bateman Centre in Victoria, BC. He was taught to sit in quiet contemplation and let the wood speak.
He is committed to working only with salvaged or sustainably logged timber, and preferably locally sourced wood.
Christen Dokk Smith is also skilled in the art of historical restoration and making high-precision replicas including reconstructing a 13th century Madonna and Child in Oak for a church in Biri, Norway. His work at the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, Norway provided him with a unique insight into preserving the quality of the old craft: making security replicas of the artefacts, while incorporating modern methods.
His local west coast commission work has ranged from the commercial for popular eatery Wolf in the Fog (from wolf’s head bar taps to a mixed media forest scene for the patio) to an interpretation in Yellow Cedar of the Stone Age Olmec colossal head for the sculpture park at Tofino Botanical Gardens.
