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New
Work Artist Statements
The sculpture Fallen Angel was created to
honor my angel of the forest, the birch. The fallen beauty embodies
the splendor of imperfection and impermanence so gracefully expressed
by the Japanese concept of wabi sabi and by nature herself. It represents
nature's tenacity and triumph of existence despite the disregard
we humans have shown her. Furthermore and for many reasons the birch
tree reminds me of my father, Angelo, who died when I was ten. It
is a tree that has always been a part of me and my love for him.
A
related sculpture, Stranded Cetacean (Birched Whale), links the
disrespect of land and plants to the earth's waters and their inhabitants.
It uses the physiology of the once nearly extinct blue whale, the
largest animal that ever lived, to represent the magnificence and
susceptibility of all that breaths and swims.
The Book of Trees is part of a new Paper Birch Book series which
honors the role that trees play in our everyday life. Wood is integral
to the printing and binding of books. The solid cover, depicted
as a weathered natural wood signifies how tree products have confidently
held the printed word of humans for centuries. The aged cover symbolizes
how the printing medium is aging slowly toward a possible death
and replacement by digital mediums. The interior of the cover is
filled with pages made from the bark of the most paper-like of trees,
the birch.
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