Trees grow in stages.
A few years ago I noticed that, by carefully carving right along the annual growth rings of the tree from which my wood was taken, I created completely new, unique and interesting art forms.
Each year, with the arrival of spring, trees come out of dormancy and begin growing again. Sap runs, branches lengthen, leaves sprout anew, and around the trunk and branches a new layer of wood develops, continuing the annual expansion of the tree’s girth. We’ve all seen these layers when looking at the end of a log or board. Distinct lines, forming irregularly shaped “rings,” mark each year’s growth. Perhaps you’ve counted those rings to determine the age of a tree. Those are growth layers.
I create art using growth layers.
Using growth layers as my artistic vocabulary, I’ve created books, leaves, butterflies, masks, and a variety of abstract forms. With careful carving, I remove unwanted wood right down to a particular layer. Trees, like all plants, grow unpredictably and irregularly, so I must carve very carefully, following the ring’s ups and downs, and it’s quirky wrinkles, to precisely reveal a single year’s growth.
The result is a unique and intimate exposure of wood, yielding the exact form of growth of that tree in one, and only one, year. Books take on the appearance of well-weathered friends. Butterflies seem to flutter in the breeze. Leaves wrinkle with signs of autumn. Each and every piece is one-of-a-kind, unpredictable, utterly irreproducible, and totally organic.
To my knowledge, no one else does growth ring carving. This unique process is an amazing way to communicate with the material, as I am working intimately at the level of the growth going on within the tree itself.
Carving along the growth rings of trees is full of meaning. All the curves in my books, or the wings of the butterflies, any of the bent forms and ripples, are exactly the way the tree naturally grew during those years, forming a sort of diary of the very tree used for the sculpture. They are pages of my books and the wave in the wings. They are also pages from the story of the tree itself, which so far can be revealed only one way.
The above links will take you directly to three different examples of forms I've created using my growth ring carving process. I've done many others, some of which are included on this site.