This is undoubtedly the most challenging, exhilarating, nature-connected, frustrating, demanding, dependably-undependable, humbling, and “life rewarding” art form that we could ever imagine being so fortunate to be co-creating; and we love it.
We enter our Art Store, not through glass doors from a parking lot, but along dirt roads into the awesome western mountain forests of Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Montana …
Sometimes in the cool mountain summers and fall, sometimes in the deep snows of winter.
In among these great Pines and Aspens we have come to choose a tree that has finished with its growing life, awaiting the inevitable fall to the forest floor. There are times when it actually feels like it is not us choosing at all, but the trees that are doing the choosing for us. A bit eerie at times, but when we feel their lead, we follow. Maybe when that happens it is their choice, who will live again as Art, in tribute to them all, as a reminder to us all of the contribution that the Forests of our world make daily to mankind. If not for the vital oxygen trees provide for us, we could not be here at all.
Another humbling and yet exhilarating discovery for us as artists, was to find that every tree that comes with us insists on participating every step of the way in its transformation, whether we like it or not. And as frustrating and demanding as it was at first, this is the part we have come to love the most.
Most art forms depend almost entirely on the skills of the artist, with the canvas and paints, or clay, or other medium, responding dependably to the artist’s touch. It’s the Artist’s imagination, talent, and skill, (some luck always helps), that usually determines the outcome. All the credit, except for possibly the inspiration, is with the artist.
But not so with this Art form. Each tree has a lot of surprises for us all along the way:
-We create a design shape …………… The tree then reveals what it ‘actually’ looks like in that shape
-We carefully dry the new shape ……... And the tree decides how it will change during this process.
-We then work with these changes with what we now call “design opportunities” for reshaping and inlays.
-In the sanding process………………... each tree again reveals its own natural and unique patterns, which lead us in our choices for color dyeing
-As we mix, and apply the colors …….. once again, the tree reacts to the dyes by “talking” to us for the next few hours with ‘popping’ and ‘cracking’ sounds (which we have come to love around the studio), thus creating a new set of “character” lines that we must work with.
-Every different tree, every different part of each tree, has its own way of responding with surprises, which is what makes it so challenging and interesting for us. And so it goes, with each step, right through to the end.
We’ve learned how much better it works for us to just “let go” and dance with the tree, as it shows us the design opportunities it creates for the final outcome. That’s the “dependably-undependable” aspect of this Art form. We listen, the tree in turn co-creates itself. Then we share the credit, just as it should be.
It is such an enjoyable and rewarding thing to take part in a creation with nature as your partner, and together there is a sort of immortalization and rebirth, of a once living, vital and beautiful part of Our world.
The process is a combination of skills and disciplines applied in the creation of the wood sculptures by Merlina. Design, hollow-form wood turning, drying techniques, earth element inlays and organic dye processes, the unique glass-like exterior finish, and flexible interior sealer are the elements that bring together the final result of the art form. Each of these processes requires independent studio spaces, and is often unpredictable and time intensive by nature. With each piece that survives the process, the end result is an organic, unique, and always one-of-a-kind creation that we hope, one day soon, will bring a timeless enjoyment to their new homes.
