“Somehow I too must discover the smallest constituent element, the cell of my art, the tangible immaterial means of expressing everything”
The quote here is by Rilke from 1903, taken from a paperback that I had borrowed many years ago from a colleague – and never returned. I pulled out the book, Letters on Cezanne by Rainer Maria Rilke, yesterday after seeing the movie Jojo Rabbit the day before. The movie references the poet more than once, and includes a quote before the closing credits.
The quote above is included here based on timing, and on its general resonance of truth in the idea that a work at it’s core, and in fact for me as an overall outcome, has the potential, and it must be the artist’s objective, to encompass the tangible immaterial means of expressing everything.
December 28, 2019 The wood chunk shown above, comes from the site for a small house project in La Pêche. See previous posts on this website for info on the La Pêche house plans as they developed over the last year, as well as multiple seasonal images from the property. The tree was not freshly cut, but had been felled two or more years prior.
December 29th, 2019 The other two wood pieces shown in the photo above, ll and l, were done in the last year. These were carved from small pieces of scrap hardwood that were purchased from a specialty lumber shop. The thinking with the new piece was, in simple practical terms, to create a utensil with a deeper bowl than the previous two; and from a more symbolic perspective, the object would somehow incorporate some of the rawness of the wood from which it was carved.
January 1st, 2020 The wood, not being freshly cut and presumably a hardwood species, turned out to be tough to carve – and started to show cracks after a few days indoors. Keeping it in water, swelled the piece and stopped further cracking. There was some hope that it would be easier to hand carve wood with a high moisture content, but this did not prove to be the case.
January 2nd, 2020
January 7th, 2020 With the piece nearing its final shape, it was boiled following a recommended method of curing. In principle, curing would help the piece resist further cracking. The wood did open up a day or two after being boiled as is seen in the photo above. While this was clearly a flaw, a decision was made to continue to work on the imperfect object. In the following days the crack closed again.
January 9th 2020
January 11th, 2020 The entire top edge/surface of the piece not only reflects, but is the actual face of the tree trunk’s core – just below the bark. As the bowl is shaped, the outer circumference of the tree generates an undulating line around the lip of the bowl. This ‘scoop’ line is thus not purposefully created, but simply a result of the tree trunk’s tubular form.
January 12th, 2020 For about half of the photos in this post, the object is presented singularly as an artifact. For the remaining images, those that include some visual clutter, the photos are just a sequential record of the life of the piece in an ‘as is’ environment, that was for whatever reason deemed photogenic.
January 16th, 2020
January 17th, 2020
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