A must-have whittling guide for beginning carvers looking to learn how to whittle, as well as advanced carvers seeking to build their existing skills and try something new. Featuring 35 projects and high-quality, full-size whittling patterns, all you need is one knife, a few found items either from out in nature or around your home – from twigs and basswood blocks to soap, avocado pits and golf balls – and this exciting whittling project book. Try a classic ball-in-cage whimsey, learn how to turn a golf ball into a face, an avocado pit into an owl, or a twig into a mini sculpture. Projects are small and simple, so they’re easy to take with you and chip away at anywhere you go! This guide also includes helpful introductory sections on the fundamentals of woodcarving, including basic cuts, wood and grain, and safety. See how easy, fun, and creative whittling can be! Original patterns contributed by today’s leading carvers, such as Guinness World Record holder Chris Lubkemann, James Miller, Nikki Reese, Tom Hindes, Sara Barraclough, and other talented and award-winning artists.

Transforming Saints explores the transformation and function of the images of holy females within wider religious, social, and political contexts of Old Spain and New Spain from the Spanish conquest to Mexican independence. The chapters here examine the rise of the cults of the lactating Madonna, St. Anne, St. Librada, St. Mary Magdalene, and the Suffering Virgin. Concerned with holy figures presented as feminine archetypes, images that came under Inquisition scrutiny, as well as cults suspected of concealing indigenous influences, Charlene VillaseNor Black argues that these images would come to reflect the empowerment and agency of women in viceregal Mexico. Her close analysis of the imagery additionally demonstrates artists' innovative responses to Inquisition censorship and the new artistic demands occasioned by conversion. The concerns that motivated the twenty-first century protests against Chicana artists Yolanda LOpez in 2001 and Alma LOpez in 2003 have a long history in the Hispanic world-anxieties about the humanization of sacred female bodies and fears of indigenous influences infiltrating Catholicism. In this context Black also examines a number of important artists in depth, including El Greco, Murillo, Jusepe de Ribera, and Pedro de Mena in Spain and Naples and Baltasar de Echave IbIa, Juan Correa, CristObal de Villalpando, and Miguel Cabrera.