Tree Sculpture Series

It’s like being a vegetarian fur-trader.

I have always had an affinity for trees. The form, the shade, the silent sentinel characteristic. I sit under them, climb them, photograph them. I did my thesis on Dendroanalysis, the chemical composition of tree rings, but my fascination started long before that with the trees I grew up around. The Charlie Brown maple in the front yard, the green, leafy maples that held the cardinals, the 40-foot evergreen that Terry and Robert D scaled fearlessly to string Christmas lights(well, not fearlessly, Terry was shaking the whole time, but determined to reach the top for her nieces, Tia and I), The tall line of pines that swallowed our Nerf foam boomerangs at an alarming rate. When the deer near the house were scraping the bark off the Charlie Brown tree, a cloth-paper strip was wound around the tree like a giant bandage and I remember stroking the wrapped trunk, wondering if it was going to get better and whether or not trees had doctors.

But, almost in defiance of my weakness for trees, my hands and eyes are also drawn to the products of trees, namely books and good, solid works of wood. I love having a score of books in our home library on every subject imaginable. I love running my hand across an table of aged, scraped oak. I love carpentry and woodburning and especially like shaping the wood with hand tools. I guess since I find trees so comforting it is natural that I would feel the same for its products, but I still can’t help but think of it as loving a tree carcass, though.

These two items are the first two in a new series of tree sculptures I will be working on. I often use leaves or tree images in my work, but this is the first time I have worked to reproduce a full tree, in miniature. I am very pleased with the way they turned out and can’t wait to think of the newest medium to make the next sculpture. Stay tuned for more…