I love it when this sort of project comes along… it’s not your normal sort of commission, but because George is an art lover, with his renovation of this small space he felt art needed to be built right in! In the reno a wall was removed but because it was structural they had to leave a post which would end up being almost in the middle of the new room. Georges solution was to ask me to build an art piece with my salvaged cedar that would cover the post. We spoke at length about how this might look and what the subject matter might be. George is also a bird lover and that gave me the idea of the two swallows connected by an abstract undulation of wind, depth and movement around an essentially round pole.
I decided the best design was to use 4 pieces of hand split old growth cedar salvaged from the beach and take them to my friend Dan with his mill so he could mill one side flat, but leaving the other sides natural. This gave me a starting point to building around the existing rough post. I used the table saw to cut another straight edge creating a 90 degree angle at the width of the post. This way I could layer each piece of wood tightly against each other around the pole needing only a few hidden screws to install the pieces around the post. Once fitted around the post the way I wanted it, I took it all apart and back to the studio where I screwed it together again without the post in the middle.
Now I was able to start the design process of putting my thoughts and design from the paper idea onto the wood. First I sanded the wood to make it more rounded than square but still keeping the natural undulations of the hand split cedar. Then I drew my design onto the wood, figuring out as I went how a 2d drawing would fit onto a 3d pole. Once happy with the design, I began the to carve, using a combination of chisels and my Foredom power carving tool to remove wood where needed. I wanted as much depth in the carving as possible to add to the three dimensionality of the sculpture.
Next is painting the carved spaces and the birds, of which I put one at the bottom and one at the top. We discussed using colour but in the end agreed that black would be the best fit. I use OneShot sign paint as it sticks very well to the cedar and lasts very well. I finished to pole with 2 coats of OSMO PolyX oil finish. This darkens the wood a little bringing out the natural colours and giving it a durable but natural looking finish. After the final install I think we achieved some built in art! Thanks again George for a fun and unique project… the Swallow pole sculpture.
