Autumn
This is a labor of love three years in the making. I started with an ash log, one of the hardest woods I had to turn, but also, come to find out, one of the hardest woods to carve as well. I’ve gone through tens of carving burrs trying to impart as much realism into each leaf and dragonfly as I could. It is one of those projects you work on for a few weeks, then feel fully exhausted. You leave it alone for a couple of months hoping for some divine intervention and then it begs for you to finish it. It’s been a true challenge to not only carve but airbrush each and every one of these leaves, twigs, and dragonflies. This hollow form stands at 11 inches in height and 9 inches in diameter. I love the overall shape, the lightness of the piece. I love that it grounds me, it sobers me to the complexity of nature, the beauty of our green environment, the harmony of of life. There are so many things I would change about this arrangement, and yet, I feel that the haphazard green combination of greenery is exactly what we love about this green earth, that nothing is perfect, but ever-changing, enticing, and unparalleled.
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I spent a lot of time on this oak leaf, trying to get the curl of the leaf to look realistic. Multiple layers of colored green, gold, metallics were airbrushed to add more intensity to the grain and topography of the leaves. My wife loves dragonflies so, of course, I had to incorporate them into this carving and try to imitate the shear frailty of their wings and body.
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I give credit to Dixie Briggs who taught us how to carve and paint clover leaves.
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