Tucked in a corner of the makerspace, a group of students sit around a table talking and laughing. Their hands are occupied with small sharp tools and craggy sticks; the beginnings of wooden figurines and tools form as they converse. Whittling Wednesday, a weekly event from 3:00-5:00 p.m. that takes place in the makerspace, provides the opportunity for students to engage in the hands-on, creative project of whittling. Woodcarving tools and branches from the Arb are supplied, and Aaron Heidgerken-Greene, the technical director for the makerspace, provides guidance and expertise. Heidgerken-Greene has been whittling since he was a child, and he started Whittling Wednesday as a new initiative this term.
“We wanted to give people a chance to get away from their technology and do things that are a little bit more hands-on and less screen time-y than the rest of their lives tend to be. It’s less workshop and more just community time to play around with things,” said Heidgerken-Greene. He says the turnout has so far been a steady “six-ish” a week.
Unlike other guided workshop events held in the makerspace, Whittling Wednesdays provides no step-by-step instructions. Whittlers are simply given the necessary tools; they can ask Heidgerken-Greene or the other whittlers for advice if needed. Notably, participants are given complete freedom over what they want to whittle.
John Diehouse ’28 had never whittled before this term, but he has attended all three Whittling Wednesdays and just finished his first project: “a magical wand.”
“It’s nice to just hang out with my friends, whittling away,” Diehouse said, highlighting the social factor of the event. “Why not go to Whittling Wednesday?”
“They just give you knives and some wood and you get to go to town,” said Cooper van Buren ’28, who has also been going since the beginning of the term. Van Buren has so far made a “sharp stick” and a “dull stick,” one of which he was continuing to hone during the interview. While he struggled at first with the lack of direct instruction, he said he has been picking it up “a whittle bit.”
Heidgerken-Greene said he sees Whittling Wednesdays as the first foray into a new kind of makerspace programming that he described as “affinity groups.”
“It’s a series of events we would like to grow into other [events] as well, just to help people have a chance to chat with each other and be able to grow skills and share interests with each other,” said Heidgerken-Greene. He chose whittling as the first activity partly out of local practicality.
“We were looking for ways we could do programming with stuff from the Arboretum during winter term when it’s harder to get people into the Arb, so we get all the branches and whatnot from the Arboretum. We’re just trying to make it so we are using materials that are sustainable and locally sourced, and wood carving is the easiest bar for that,” said Heidgerken-Greene.
But Heidgerken-Greene has an ideological reasoning for whittling as well.
“Anecdotally speaking, I think that since the pandemic people have been looking for ways to make more connections in the real world with each other,” said Heidgerken-Greene. “Giving people the opportunity to get away from the algorithm, make it so you can actually meet new people and share opinions with each other, just to have an opportunity to build community.” He referenced the concept of “third spaces,” a term coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg in his 1989 book, “The Great Good Place.” It refers to a gathering space that is not home (the “first place”) or work (the “second place”), and is regarded as essential for the health of a community.
According to Carleton College’s 2023 Well-Being Perceptions survey, 49% of Carleton students screen positive for loneliness on the UCLA loneliness scale. Former Surgeon General Vivek Murphy said that the United States is currently in a “national epidemic of loneliness and isolation.”
In the 2023 edition of “The Great Good Place,” Oldenburg’s coauthor Karen Christensen argued that third places are the answer for loneliness. She described the seven qualities of a third space: it doesn’t require an invitation, it is comfortable, it is convenient, it is unpretentious, there are regulars, conversation is the main activity and laughter is frequent.
While it can’t be said that Whittling Wednesdays are the full solution to the loneliness epidemic, those “third space” qualities were all present according to students present.
“I absolutely think it’s a time to disconnect,” said van Buren. “It’s meditative once you really get going. You get calm when you’re whittling the wood, you kind of lose track of time.”
Anna Borkowski ’266, who was at the Makerspace to repair the buttons on her overalls, happened upon Whittling Wednesday and joined in.
“It’s very, very cathartic, very therapeutic,” said Borkowski as she carved a small wooden bear. When asked about the screen-less social value of Whittling Wednesdays, she was enthusiastic.
“I would not have met you guys!” said Borkowski, referring to the other whittlers she had spent the last hour chatting with.
“I also don’t like my phone and I think it’s invasive. The beeping, the algorithms. It’s giving me too much that I don’t need. And whittling is giving me what I do need. An escape that’s not influencing me. It’s not taking my data, it’s not going to give me more things. I could stop at any point if I wanted to, but I don’t want to,” said Borkowski.
