After posting on oxy-acetylene earlier, I thought it might be appropriate to share an example of what someone might normally do with these tools. “Untitled Tree” is my first serious attempt at using steel as a material (made Spring of 2009). It was in the process of creating this piece that I became intrigued by many of the residual artifacts left over from welding, plasma cutting, hammering, grinding, and ocy-acet torching. In many ways, the aesthetic of this tree has been purposefully built around these artifacts.
This tree is one in a series of several I have made exploring the animate qualities of trees as creatures as well as the mythical quality of trees as a habitation. The other trees are made from coiled clay, driftwood, and a lost-wax glass casting. The photos below are from the 3D4M Undergraduate Juried Exhibition, where my steel tree was selected for display (Winter 2010). If you’re interested in seeing the rest of the show, I also photographed my peers’ work and posted the images to a gallery.
The cavity toward the top of the tree was designed to hold a candle. When lit, the branches cast incredible shadows!
The holes outside this cavity can be seen as windows in a dwelling space.
The leaves were made by a mixture of hammering, oxy-acet heating/bending, and angle grinding.
The edge on the base is a deep, angled plasma cut.
