China Grove

48"H x D (variable)
Western Red Cedar
White porcelain paint, acrylic panels, wires

Photography by Gillean Proctor

In most of my work, I try to bring the outside inside. With my sculpture China Grove, however, my challenge was to display effectively a part of the forest within a forest setting.

I wanted to create objects that had the look of precious porcelain figurines and present them in an outdoor space that would serve as a natural display cabinet. With this in mind, I treated nine cedar flares_stumps that have been pulled from the ground_with a substance that gave them a china-like appearance.

In a beautiful forest grove, at Salt Spring Woodworks on Salt Spring Island, I hung them all at the same height to give the impression of a base supporting them. The shifting natural light within the grove plays over the porcelain-textured surfaces of the hanging flares and imbues them with a strikingly ethereal quality.