Àngel Soler

With the strong con­vic­tion that every­thing around us can be turned into art, Àngel Soler gath­ers sev­eral types of wood, mainly box­wood but also wal­nut, chest­nut, poplar and elder wood, and sculpts artis­tic pieces that make an im­pres­sion on all who see them. El Pasteral, the neigh­bour­hood next to La Cellera de Ter where Àngel has lived for some 50 years, serves as a great source of in­spi­ra­tion for him due to its ex­cep­tion­ally calm and nat­ural sur­round­ings.

His pas­sion for wood­carv­ing comes from the years he spent work­ing as a shep­herd, which began when he was just six­teen. When­ever he got bored of look­ing after the goats and sheep, he started shap­ing branches and logs to cre­ate every­day ob­jects, such as the walk­ing stick we see in the image.

Al­though he has pro­duced a huge amount of art, Àngel has never con­sid­ered sell­ing his sculp­tures; rather, he prefers to give them to his loved ones as pre­sents. Many now also dec­o­rate var­i­ous chapels or even the Monastery in Amer.

1. Don­key. A won­der­ful rep­re­sen­ta­tion of one of Cat­alo­nia’s sym­bols, this sculp­ture at­tracts both chil­dren and adults, who usu­ally want a pho­to­graph along­side it.

2. Clock. A fun­da­men­tal item of his work, he makes all sorts. The num­bers are made from var­i­ous ma­te­ri­als like an­i­mal bones. This clock not only shows the of­fi­cial time but is also a sun­dial.

3. Ge­nealog­i­cal tree (lit­er­ally!). Àngel took ad­van­tage of a nice trunk he found to graph­i­cally rep­re­sent the mem­bers of his fam­ily.

4. Shot­gun. This weapon is only a copy and even though it looks very real, it is to­tally harm­less!

5. Shoe. Not even the biggest foot in the world would fit in­side this one!

6. Tools. Three es­sen­tial tools are needed to get the right re­sults: a gouge, a chisel and a rasp.

7. Pipe. Al­though he’s never been a smoker, Àngel uses heather wood – in keep­ing with tra­di­tion – or box­wood to fash­ion them.​for of the Ro­manesque Majesty of Beget, which may well be his mas­ter­piece, now adorn­ing the Chapel of Sant Just and Sant Pas­tor in La Cellera.

9. Pocket watch, an­other time­piece from his vast col­lec­tion!

10. Chain. Ac­cord­ing to Àngel, this is prob­a­bly the most com­pli­cated piece to make and needs to be fash­ioned using box­wood be­cause of its re­sis­tance. What’s more, most of the chains are fash­ioned from only one piece!

11. Walk­ing stick. The old­est and most pre­cious of his works, it has a high sen­ti­men­tal value and he would never part with it.

12. Ab­stract sculp­ture. This beau­ti­ful piece shows us that re­al­ism is not the only artis­tic style. Also, Àngel says he re­spects what the piece of wood it­self wants to be, rather than what he would like to turn it into.

13. Àngel’s stu­dio, with the crafts­man hard at work on a new cre­ation.