I recently completed a sculpture for the upcoming "Wild Things" themed show at River Arts Gallery in Damariscotta. When I found out the theme of the show I knew that I had a piece of wood put aside that had "wild" potential. It was split piece of firewood that was about 17" long. The split side of the log was was pretty much hollowed out. The barked side had an elongated ridge down the length of it and a round ridged opening where it had lost a branch at the end of the ridge. It looked like a shrouded screaming face. I proceeded to "remove the shroud" and reveal the face. |
Removing bark is always a bit of an adventure because you don't know exactly how thick it is and you never know what you will find underneath it. As I started to shape the nose area I found that the underlying wood was very light colored. The exterior off the bark had great texture and I knew I wanted to retain as much of it as I could, but I also found that the underneath layers had interesting color patterns. The trick was going to be to achieving a visual balance between the different colors and textures on this 3-dimensional form. |
*Photos by Jay York Portland, Maine