Eye of the Needle

Chopping wood, in a weird way, led to the creation of this latest sculpture… a fine little piece I’m calling Eye of the Needle.

With every passing year, the Seasons have a growing effect on the structure of my life. There are times of the year that are just better for certain things than others. For instance, right now is great wood cutting/chopping weather. You can almost smell winter in the air and the pleasure of preparing for it is surprisingly satisfying.

While I generally do not work on more than one sculpture at a time, this is an exception. I was finding it difficult with the demands of Autumn to devote my full attention to the piece I’m still working on, Recurve Torsion II.

Instead of this complex puzzle of curves, I needed something simpler and more directly elegant to work on. The repetition of swinging an axe leads to meditative, repetitive thought – thought which shaves down and refines notions. It’s almost as if the axe cleaves off extraneous details in my mind, and channels my thoughts down a certain timeless path. And so I came up with this new sculpture design, and it was just what I needed.

So if you ask me what where my inspiration comes from, and I reply chopping wood, I’m not just pulling your leg.