This piece was carved from a small block of redwood that I inherited from one of my students.  She was an older woman that originally had been carving with my teacher, Ben Shaw.  When she moved into a retirement home she gave me this piece that she had gotten years before.  It seemed to me that the only thing that I could carve would be this ancient face

Old Growth Redwood, Pigment

Old Growth Redwood, Pigment

September 2001 

I started carving this piece the afternoon of September  11, 2001.  It helped me to deal with stress to whack away at a piece of wood.  The mask was carved in only a few intense hours of work.  For several weeks I gathered quotations of peace from as many different cultures and perspectives as possible.  These were then burned into the surface of the mask, my way of trying to counter act the bombarding of negativity that surrounded us in those days.

Basswood, Wood burning, paint

Basswood, Wood burning, paint

I struggled with this piece.  It was originally envisioned as a face that was happy on one side and sad on the other. I carved and put finish on it and hated it. It just didn't work for me at all. I re-carved much of the face, I reworked and re-carved some more  and was at the point of  tossing it.  I actually started to cut it apart.  It was at that point that it started to work.  When I totally let go of my original idea it finally worked.  

Paulownia, graphite, red iron oxide

For several years this piece had spikes off purple heart hair, that never seemed right to me.  Last year she got a new do and it reminds me of thought bubbles floating up.

Paulownia, purple heart, oil pigment

This piece was carved from fall off scrap that came from squaring up a large log into timbers.  My Wood Guy, Kevin, saved it from the trash heap  because he  thought that there was enough wood that might be able to get a mask out of the center of the crescent shape.  The piece sat in my studio for a long while and I was hesitant to cut off all of the thin outer part in order to only get a fairly shallow piece for a mask.  One day  I saw the image of the face emerging  and pushing out.   I immediately made a small clay model.   I struggled with getting the face to emerge how I wanted since  some of the outer wood was somewhat  spalted  and soft.  I finally decided to use a penetrating epoxy to stabilize the wood.  It  gave the normally soft wood a firm texture that allowed me to use the graphite to emphasize the folds.  The old bolt heads added  to the feeling of the stretching  and  visually nailed it to the wall.   

Spalted Paulownia, steel, graphite

This was made from scrap left over from an outdoor arbor that Tharp-Hamilton  Woodworking did back in the late 1990s.  It was such a beautiful piece of wood that I saved it for years.  I rough cut out the shape of the face, cut it into cubes, and glued it back together with paper between each joint.  I then carved the face and popped the pieces apart when I was done.   The pieces are joined together with copper wire and copper button spacers.  The row for the eyes is upside down giving it an odd look.  

Redwood, copper, oil paint

Honduran mahogany, wood burning, Danish oil

Honduran mahogany, wood burning, Danish oil