Carpentry is a field of craftsmanship involving timber construction, producing wooden based units including furniture and buildings. Carpenter is the craftsperson who works in this field. Skilled carpenters had been the back bones of luxurious fancy buildings throughout the world, such as William Hurley the builder of Tower of London, Windsor Castle, Palace of Westminster, St. Stephen’s Chappel, and Ely Cathedral, or Matthew Banckes, the major builder of Winslow Hall. Actor Harisson Ford had once occupied himself as a carpenter and works as stagehand of rock band, The Doors, and also build sun deck for Sally Kellerman and recording studio for Sergio Mendez; this occupation had eventually introduced him to George Lucas who then offered him the role of Han Solo of Star Wars.
The work of carpentry includes cabinet maker, framer, trim carpenter, ship’s carpenter, et cetera. In traditional Bali, carpentry surrounds in house building, cabinet making, wooden furniture making, woodworking joints, ship building, ship wrighting, and any other woodworkings such as making wooden souvenir and jewelry. A lot of carpenters tend to choose only one working field to maintain their focused skill and produce best quality works.
Simpler works of carpenter include the building of structural woodworks such as window pane and frames, or door casings. Ship building or naval engineering requires the skill and knowledge of how to make a floating vessel. This field was named among the structural woodworks that many carpenters are working in. But, although this was considered as ‘simpler’ works, the job is not at all simple—it was called simple for its simplicity in shape, not in the convenience of the work; while the works might even be more complex and takes a lot more effort and cost than artistic carpentry.
The rest of carpenters tend to be ended up interested in scrutinizing the more artistic carpentry such as carving, cabinet making, furniture making, or even wooden toy making and jewelry. Wooden carving has been one of Balinese traditional cultural art since many years ago. This includes wooden puppets, shadow puppets, wooden masks, and various figurines in shapes of mythical figures and resemblance of Balinese beliefs. The magnificent art and scrutinized design of Balinese art of carving and carpentry makes it a world-wide well-known traditional souvenir from Indonesia.
Mostly, carpentry is looked as a green collared occupation or the ones that has poor income. Many believed that carpenters are mostly come from low economical family and from small, traditional towns. While this is partly true, the works of carpentry are actually has been expanded into a new level of working rate due to the increasing number of builder needs in this modern era; for the needs of new buildings such as working offices, fancy houses, or business centers like malls, coffee shops, restaurants, or spa center. In these later days, constructional carpenter are vigorously wanted for such needs to work together with architects and contractors. This evolve the life quality of carpenters, and due to this, we can be sure that surely there would be more wondrous building works resulting to the increase of this kind of affability.
