 Mastering the art of wood carving takes a lot of skill, and the annual Black Duck Woodcarver's Festival has been finding the best at it for years now. Our own Cheryl Moore has that story, and this week's in focus. For more than 30 years, Woodlivers have traveled all over the country to Black Duck to check out the ultimate one-stop shop for everything pine, cherry, or oak. The festival has come a long way over the decades, and now features a lot more than just wood. Within a couple three years, the arts and crafts start joined in, and it became more of a community event, and it became a bigger event. We do a lot of shows down in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida. Just very friendly people here, very down to earth. Woodcarvers are hard to come by nowadays, so this show gives those in the field their chance to shine. For many, the journey started with a love for drawing and a little whittling. I love wood. I love the grains of wood, and I have an art background, and so being that my mom and dad had all the tools and the paints and everything, I decided to do it. I started carving in high school by hand with a chisel, and I was always interested in it, so I took pictures of everybody's carvings. To be a good woodcarver, you not only have to have the skills, you also have to have a creative eye. Woodcarving is a is a dimensional art. It's totally different than, and wood carving you'll see in Tarja. Many carvers will tell you it's more than just poking up a block of wood and then going at it with a chainsaw. So I'm like to draw their image on the wood and then make the right cuts. Yeah, a lot of people draw a picture first, like three-dimensional, so they know which side to go. You can actually draw on the wood, so you know where you want the ears and the arms, which helps a lot I think. If this story has you thinking about picking up a saw and finding a stump to practice on, the first rule is always be safe. The second rule is try and try again until you succeed. If you enjoy doing crafts and art, that what you could do is just start on your own and draw and just whittle things, and pretty soon if you start enjoying it, you get to see what happens with the wood, because everything that's in a piece of wood has something there that needs to be found. Reporting in Black Duck with this week's In Focus, Cheryl Moore, Lakeland News. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.