Making flash cartoons with her friends in middle school, Katie Aldworth was destined for a career in animation. After graduating from Florida State University film school, she says she weaseled her way into stop motion, worked in VFX, and finally landed in storyboarding and directing for 2D TV animation. But for as much as she loves her job, she admits: “When I work with my hands, I can find a deep focus and calm that I can’t get from anything else—so creating handmade art has always been essential to my sanity.”
Aldworth first started whittling to keep her hands busy on a camping trip with her family during the pandemic. “On a whim, I stopped at a woodworking shop on the way up the mountain and bought a knife and a piece of wood to carve a spoon,” she says. Fortunately, she had a first aid kit with her because right off the bat she sliced open her thumb.
She’s come a long way since that injury, crafting miniature creatures that would be right at home in the cartoons she works on. This is likely because her Little Guys are inspired by doodles she makes on scrap paper, the backs of envelopes—whatever she has at hand. “The sloppiest scribbles always end up having the most charm, so those are the ones I turn into carvings,” she says. “When I’m carving, I try to let go of my perfectionism and instead make art with no expectations.”
Each creature is done by hand with a single 1-1/2” whittling knife. Aldworth begins with a piece of basswood, and once the figure is carved, she paints it using acrylics and then finishes it with a mix of orange oil and beeswax. A carving takes her a few hours to make. Not only is the satisfaction more immediate than with her animation work, she says: “Drawing is great, but you can’t really hug an image. When I’m done carving, I have something I can touch and hold.”
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