Thailand. Lenten Candle Festival. International Competition.

Now as I reported before there was an international competition going on between some countries on who create the best carving from wax.

Now I thought or hoped that an Australian entrant was participating in the contest but when I viewed the sculptures or carvings there wasn’t a kangaroo, emu or koala bear to be seen.

There were people from France, Portugal, Japan, China, Thailand, Finland and a few other places as well.

At the start of the week they were giver a large solid piece of wax and then they had to create their masterpiece in a few days. (3 or 4 days I think).

Now the masterpieces were all totally different and some I thought looked very good considering the time they had to complete them.

There were different pictures of the craftsmen at work and the different tools they used. Some used chainsaws, blowtorches, chisels and other stuff.

Now I have to admit some of the carvings were not what I was expecting but I am not sure they had any guidelines to follow. I think it was up to the craftsmen to do what they liked.

The Finnish guy created a strange thing as the solid block of wax on the bottom remained virtually untouched and on top coming out of the block was horn like things and some flowers on top of them. It was okay but didn’t knock me out.

The Thai craftsman came up with a very intricate design and it looked amazing. The amount of work in the carving of the block and in a relatively short amount of time is a credit to the man. This was my third favourite.

Now the Italian man came up with an absolute ripper of a carving and it looked like something from a designer label Furniture Company. It was like a reclining lounge that could be from another time zone. The amazing thing is the designer had to melt the block of wax and reshape it to create this piece of work. I give him very big thumbs up for this design. He was the 2nd favourite.

The best for me and by a good country mile was the entrant from China. He carved a large mythological bird that was part like an owl but with a head that I have seen in mythological pictures. It had a chain in its mouth and was meant to be carrying (I think) The World. You can see a wax map of Thailand and this was sitting on a beautifully carved base of painstaking design. This was my number one pick.

Also the Frenchman deserves a mention with his tower like design and might have been inspired by the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was a simpler design than others but I am sure wouldn’t have been easy to carve.

So this was the International competition and the carvings don’t even rate compared to the main carvings of the big temples around Thailand. These are a year round project and the amount of man hours would be enormous.
I have many pictures of the large candles and also the smaller candles carved by the villagers from around the area. I hope to have all these posted over the next few days.

Brunty