Abstract Upcycled Wood "Sculpture"
A couple of years ago, an image came to me of three shapes that could combine into a potentially interesting sculpture or 3D piece of art: a horizontal piece on the bottom, an upward curving piece in the middle, and a circular/donut-shaped piece on the top. I didn’t have any firm ideas of how I might realize the vision, but I kept my eyes open for items that might be useful. While walking around my Glover Park neighborhood of D.C. one day I spotted a beauty: a rough-cut cross-section/slice of a pine tree, about a foot across, with a hole and an interesting crack in it. Not long after, while walking my dog in Georgetown, I came across an oddly curved and very dirty piece of wood. I determined it was a segment of a very old/thick vine that had grown in an upward spiral around a thick tree trunk. I saw its potential. I used a belt sander and hand sanding to clean up the vine and cut away the two rough ends. I also spent a lot of time using a belt sander and hand sanding to smooth out both sides of the tree slice. To construct a horizontal base, I turned to my stash of pallet wood. I chose three pieces of varying widths, including one with some original bark fringe still attached. I cut the pieces to length, sanded them until smooth, and used Minwax “Ebony” stain on one piece to create a stark contrast with the other two pieces, which I left natural, and I glued them all together. I finished all the upcycled components with a few coats of Minwax water-based clear satin Polycrylic. I bought a dowel, stained it ebony, drilled holes in the three components and ran the dowel through them with spacing that appealed to me. I really like the final product.
