Uprooted


The "root" is the heart of the matter. To put down roots is to find one's place, to reach down deep, to connect with the earth. Ancient redwoods are some of the oldest trees on earth. They have muscular broad roots pushing out from massive buttressed stumps. These roots are the heart of the current Uprooted sculpture show at Paradise Ridge Winery. These muscular organic forms are the remains of redwoods cut 100 years ago. To be uprooted is to have been pulled away from the earth. To be uprooted is also to have roots turned skyward. In either case Uprooted implies dynamic forces.

Roots are the form, the muscle, the heart and the spirit of these sculptures. This is more than language. The physical world is more complex than language. There are things we know without knowing. For example, these muscular roots come from trees more than 1000 years old. They are elders, charismatic megaflora, millennium witnesses. You do not need to know this to feel the power, energy or vitality of the wood. There is simply a resonance that is felt before knowing.

Making sculpture is a process of joy and exuberance, of labor and difficulty, of solitude and uncertainty and back to joy and exuberance. This "uprooted" series of sculptures is a cohesive body of work sharing common materials and a common theme. The common materials are roots, logs and copper boulders. The common theme is the dynamic relationship of form, mass and energy. In this context, the taxonimy of sculpture is simple; Roots are form, boulders are mass and logs are energy.

For me the exploration of form, mass and energy is an intuitive process. While I apply a lexicon of terms to describe this work and this process do not let my use of language confuse you. I can imagine or discover these sculptures to be models of solar systems or sub atomic models to be haikus, to be metaphors for existence or poetic expressions of the Tao of Physics. but I do not begin with ideas. I begin with materials and intuition. Form, mass and energy are omnipreset themes in this process.

FORM: Roots are the form, the body, the muscle, the heart and the spirit of these sculptures. Shaped by the tenacious and persistent vitality of nature these roots are the impetus and inspiration for this new sculpture.

MASS: Copper boulders are mass. While copper boulders do not have the specific density of stone they do have the visual density. Boulders are stacked on top of root masses, perched on the outstretched tendrils of roots, wedged within the tenacious grip of roots or hung by chain from roots or logs. .

ENERGY: Logs express direction and energy, they are vectors, linear elements that have been rounded and tapered. I think of them as vectors, lines of energy in a certain direction. The tapering of the log cuts through layers of grain creating patterns that suggest energy, electo magnetic fields or electric charge. These logs penetrate form like cosmic rays penetrate matter. Nothing is solid. Nothing is permanent everything is energy. These logs hold copper boulders in space as electrons are held in orbit by electro magnetic force or moons are held in orbit by gravitational force. "The sound of the cicida penetrates rock."