My full story

I'm Dirk, and I'm not a carver myself. This is how Carvingkunst came about anyway.

I was born in Porz, today a district of Cologne. My father's job took us to the south of France, where I grew up. When we hardly spoke German any more, I was sent to boarding school in Baden-Baden, followed by further stops in Germany.

After school I trained as a freight forwarding clerk, served two years as a temporary soldier in the German armed forces and then worked in the freight forwarding sector. During that time I qualified as a transport specialist. In 1998 I moved into industry, where I still work today as a senior manager. In 2004 I added a degree in business administration.

Since 2016 I have been travelling to trade fairs and events with products for chainsaws. That is how I got to know timber sports athletes, forestry workers and chainsaw artists. All three worlds fascinated me from the very beginning, and everywhere I met great people: open, warm-hearted and always up for a chat. Twice my employer and I organised a day on which all three competitions ran at the same time. Due to construction work, the event can unfortunately no longer take place. What remains are many friendships and contacts.

With the artists I noticed that they were missing a shared website: a place where you can find their work, contact them or learn from them. So I built Carvingkunst.

In my free time you will most likely find me on the golf course. And I have always been programming: websites, software solutions and interfaces, in Delphi, HTML, PHP, Ajax and Java. So Carvingkunst also grew out of a hobby.

Thank you to everyone who supports Carvingkunst: to all who add and update events, show their work, recommend the site and spread the word. Without you, this site would be empty.

Best wishes, Dirk