Scavenger

Mornings and evenings are chilly. Autumn is here.We need fuel for the firebox.  I walked up and down the north west sloping woodland hunting for dead wood to cut and carry down. The tree tops roared quietly like distant surf at low tide, and over and far above geese honked. A luminous, numinous skyscape. Too cold now for the swallows.
I harvested from a long dead, stretched out birch storm victim. I then went home for a camera:

             

Assemblage

These cracks are bothering me. The limitations of this single woodblock bother me too ! However as a technical exercise the process is interesting and challenging. And, since experiencing a lot of satisfaction and encouragement in constructing yesterday`s sculpture/bench, I`m reminded of the liberating potential in an assemblage approach: Where can I remove bulk (and sheer weight) from the birch legs ? where and what further elements can be added ? (  having a  functional dimension ticks another of my internal boxes.)
This makes me view the above piece as possible donor-parts-potential if either the grain-splits or the subject matter defeat me in the end...

In doing, clarity will come

I`m really pleased to have incorporated the hard-won birch trunk with the ruminating and handless elm horseman figure (who, in setting forth, achieves some level of insight on his travels ). There`s a bigger piece in this but in the meantime I like that there is a birch bench in the hallway upon which laces can be tied, velcro strapped.

 I am pleased that serendipidy brought these two wooden elements together. I`m also aware that my holiday days will end tomorrow and with them, some of the capacity to fashion, dwell on and play with these objects and symbols.

 

Running Horse

The ears went; lobbed off more or less accidently but with an awareness that there was a growing touch of rat or pig about them. This irrevocable earlessness left me scunnered, so I left the woodblock and went away to pick up my daughter at the yard where I could stare at Fudge and Frankie - ruminate on how their ears met their heads, the sheer length and flexibility of them.   Hacking away again, there  now developed a similarity to Janosch`s Hase mit die schnellen schuen, but I think the wooden horse`s ears, pinned back in its running and leaping, protectively overlaying the girl`s head, will "work". I don`t mind if it doesn`t resemble a horse too much (and no doubt ears pinned back like this on a real beast signify extreme distress.....) The girl will be facing roughly forwards; straining  towards the action - hands not grasping the neck, but held outstretched on either side, giving her horse its freedom.

Oak Wood

I tried in vain to retrieve the piece of wood I cut a few months back. It is now more tightly wedged than ever, despite (or because of) my best efforts with a long improvised lever. Down again in the broadleaf woodland by the back road, tired,  I stumbled upon a hefty chunk of oak, remnant of chainsaw harvesting, and, walking around the block, wondered if this might do.

Now, as I take advantage of a stretch of free days, I wonder why I don`t have a chainsaw, because hacking out lumps of wood to get at any shape is very time-consuming. But  a girl on a horse is emerging, slowly. I think of Marino Marini`s horses and riders,  of Marc Chagall`s dream paintings, and of my daughter. 

Slowly emerging

Marc Chagall

Forest Dweller

The Bold Burn runs up parallel with the logging road a mile and, at the junction, swerves left  into marshy grassland before rising away steeply , taking its burbling with it.
Drawing breath after running  the rise I stood at the quiet junction this afternoon, staring  into a copse of spruce trees there, that wedge between the burn and the forest road. Unusually on Forestry land these are mature spruce, tall and strong. I climbed down into the copse`s heart and all was dark and silent, but for the Bold burn murmuring, the muffling floor fifty years of soft brown needles. I studied the thick trees` down-sloping branches and mapped a climb in my head. Abandoning this my eye then caught right angles in amongst the tangled diagonals; at seven feet  someone had placed a slim pole-like  branch between two trees and, rising from the needle carpet to meet it in the middle was a twenty feet long sapling trunk, stripped of branches. Together they formed a fragile, rising cross. Looking down I saw the stone circle of a camp fire, blackened with burnt branches and pine cones. Weeks, months old. Trying to make sense I envisaged a forest dweller lying flat, staring up at the looming, falling cross in some solitary rapture or torment. (Why did I think that ?)  And then, as though an archaeologist piecing together a (remarkably well preserved)  find, I saw flat stone rows either side that would have  held  waterproof sheeting down, and I heard again the burn only a few metres away; close-by for washing. But for the intruding forest road above, a traveller had created a perfect bivouac.   In my mind`s eye I saw them at night, head protruding from under their open canopy, warmed by a resinous fire, hearing owls hoot, foxes bark and being lulled to sleep by the constant  reassuring chatter of the burn.

Seize the Day

In my home reside a number of odd wooden figures; some of these have birds perched atop their heads; as though both man and beast share souls.  They stand as testimony to an earlier, less busy phase of my life. 

Today, Robin held his hands aloft for a reluctant five minutes while I sketched. Then I went to the birch trunk, hefted its bulk upright and, after much rumination, painted brush strokes for shoulders and forearms.

Then I sat astride the log and, with chisel and mallet, embarked, finally, upon the figure