The Tree
I was asked recently by Emmeline Hallmark, founder of the wonderful Tree Art Gallery for a statement about what Trees, or The Tree meant to me. There is no short answer - I’ve always been drawn to areas of woodland, so I thought I’d use this as a sort of meditation to explore this for myself. These are my musings.
There is an intimacy we share with trees - what they exhale, we inhale. If we are sensitive enough, and “open” our nostrils, or at least attend to our sense of smell, when we enter a woodland we will become aware of the delicious fragrance of the trees around us - the result of an enveloping cloud of aromatic particles, emanated by the trees around us as they attract or repel useful, or harmful organisms - insects, fungi, mosses and lichen. Trees are definitely our friends. Without them we’re in trouble.
One aim of The Tree Art Gallery is to raise money for charities who protect, nurture, or plant trees. I chose Project Green Hands in South India. Its stated aims are the partial reforestation of Tamil Nadu - a hugely ambitious project as Tamil Nadu is the largest state of India, and one of the driest. Having been involved deeply with the Isha foundation, who launched this project in 200???, I know the other, deeper mandate of the charity, which is to facilitate within people a direct experience of the oneness of life. The term “spiritual experience” is bandied around a lot these days, but in 2002 I experienced just that. A profound connection with a single leaf, on a single tree, in an ashram in south India during an intense yoga practice. As Sadhguru, the founder of Isha says, once the oneness of existence becomes a living experience within you, nobody has to tell you to look after the natural world, you become a part of it, naturally you will preserve it. 20 years on it is still the most transformative experience of my life.
My working “process” often involves splitting and shaving wood. It evokes a sense of delight, as many who have come on my courses will attest. The sweet marzipan fragrance of fresh split wild English cherry can make me want to bury my face in shavings - the tannin notes released as sweet chestnut creaks open, as yet unseen by human or any eye is exhilarating. The fresh wet mossy aroma of a freshly felled ash tree. Lovely stuff! Working with drawknife, axe and froe is a simple kind of sculpture. Working with, enhancing and refining the natural curves and shapes in the wood. Composing them into furniture which is sensitive, balanced and robust
Of course there is destruction in this process, but where possible I use coppiced trees from landowners I trust. Or I use trees which have been felled due to disease or storm damage. Areas of well managed woodland - managed not only for income, but importantly, for bio-diversity. Clearing an area of coppice allows light into the area. Having areas of coppice, all at different stages in their growth cycle, massively boosts the number of species inhabiting a woodland. Cut one tree down, and 3 or four more will sprout. In coppice systems, old, diseased wood is cut out, preserving the root structure, keeping it healthy, and prolonging the life of the organism. In Gloucestershire there is a giant ring of Linden trees, each genetically identical to the original tree - the same organism has been thriving there for over 2000 years! Only due to a respectful, sharing approach by humans, and the tree’s own symbiotic relationship with its underground mycelial partners. Every 20 years the new trunks have been cut back to the ground, and allowed to grow back. The wood has been harvested and used, but the tree has benefitted too. It would never have survived so long without this human intervention, this “grateful exchange”.
It gives me a happy feeling to be working the way I do. Through my furniture I hope to do justice to the magnificent tree that once stood, in a woodland or sometimes a garden, not far from my workshop. I avoid the predictability and uniformity of kiln dried, plantation grown European or American timber with its carbon footprint and its whiff of economics. I find huge corporate timber mills depressing places. Trees are not “product” to me, but organisms with which we share the most intimate connection. What they breathe out, we breathe in.
