This work is a reflection on the death of my mother and is very solid and heavy in the weight of materials - unlike some that are frameworks like Fields which is spacial and light. The wood in this work is also hard and heavy and comprised of two pieces: the lower is Teak likely from Burma and is weathered and old as it was part of a train that died in Port Elizabeth in the last twenty years and had its hey-day in the first half of last century, yet still very robust. The upper piece is an indigenous Milkwood cut around 2010 ( the time of her passing) and the wood looks fresh and unblemished - as new. A fact that has always humbled me is a a story told by the late Gwen Skinner, an eminent botanst at a dendrological meet years ago about how Milkwoods large limbs often droop with age and weight and eventually touch the ground and then succumb to bark eating porkupines and beetles etc., meanwhile a new 'riser' has emerged and after decades or centuries becomes too heavy and slowly sags! The 'big' tree where the story was told was enormous in girth but much of it long gone, with new shoots coming up. She said this tree was likely already ancient when the first Colonist came to this country. The work feels like a tool, weapon or device and as I was constructing it these thoughts reverberated with power - something about the power a mother gives a son.
This work is a reflection on the death of my mother and is very solid and heavy in the weight of materials - unlike some that are frameworks like Fields which is spacial and light. The wood in this work is also hard and heavy and comprised of two pieces: the lower is Teak likely from Burma and is weathered and old as it was part of a train that died in Port Elizabeth in the last twenty years and had its hey-day in the first half of last century, yet still very robust. The upper piece is an indigenous Milkwood cut around 2010 ( the time of her passing) and the wood looks fresh and unblemished - as new. A fact that has always humbled me is a a story told by the late Gwen Skinner, an eminent botanst at a dendrological meet years ago about how Milkwoods large limbs often droop with age and weight and eventually touch the ground and then succumb to bark eating porkupines and beetles etc., meanwhile a new 'riser' has emerged and after decades or centuries becomes too heavy and slowly sags! The 'big' tree where the story was told was enormous in girth but much of it long gone, with new shoots coming up. She said this tree was likely already ancient when the first Colonist came to this country.
ReplyDeleteThe work feels like a tool, weapon or device and as I was constructing it these thoughts reverberated with power - something about the power a mother gives a son.