Emerald

I was sanding in the sunshine. Wondering at the emerald's glow as its sheen broke free.

It's been a while

All spring, part of summer, the heat, the wind, the clouds, the flow... I found a twisted branch in Kustavi many years back. It's been hanging in the back of the barn all this time and just yesterday it caught my eye and had me think, yes, it's time.

Around the bend

So much snow this past winter that it built up on branches and caused a lot of them to break off. So I've been making my way through the forest, across strange swamps, over hills, across valleys, around each bend. There have been a few good pieces. But mostly it has been about the walking.

Wove, woven, weaved

Etymology 1 Old English wefan. Cognate with Dutch weven, German weben, Swedish väva. Etymology 2 Probably from Old Norse veifa ‘move around, wave’, related to Latin vibrare. So etymology 1 can be said to relate to what people do, and etymology 2 to what objects do. A person weaves, an ambulance weaves. There also seems to be a distinction between going over and under and going side to side, twisting turning... A branch, a knife blade, a hand. The weave of the branch as the act of the hand.

Solidity and thought

I have been in daily interaction with wood to shape solidity, subtracting out of a form to discover something within even as it remains a thought. The wood is there.

spoons and spheres

A wooden spoon, like so many things, is the process of working a surface to "build inwards" towards a core elemental identity. I found a birch tree that feel down in the high winds last week. I need to get the bark shaved away so that the wood can breathe. First things first.

Rock and wood

There's a huge tree stump out behind our house that I've been trying to move (half-heartedly) for about six months. It has a beautiful space where a rock has been "grown-around" by the roots, creating an almost sensual intertwining of rock and wood. I would like to celebrate it.