Invasive

This work was titled at the last moment- an epiphany if you will. I was happy just to try my hand at carving ivy crawling up the stump of a tree, the detail work is challenging and it’s a contest to see how much you can’t break off in the process. While stone sculpting is certainly a reductive process (you take stuff off instead of adding stuff on like clay work to get what you want.), it isn’t rare that you take too much- either accidentally or on purpose. I also wanted to do a full sized piece, which, unfortunately, can make things rather heavy and it can be a struggle to just move it around (and also potentially break things off.) This piece shows a possum (or “opossum” if that’s how you roll) relaxing in a hollow stump of a tree that has been cut down. The bark is modeled like a young ash tree, and crawling up the stump is some English ivy. If you look closely you will also see some recent additions to our climate, the Lantern Fly, who congregate as adults in groups on the trunks of trees like Gen-Xers at a hip bar. It’s actually a pretty bug if you can ignore the invasive part. And here brings us full circle to the name of the piece, “Invasive.” The sculpture depicts several invasive species to our Maryland climate- the English Ivy, which will take over anything that doesn’t move, the aforementioned Lantern Fly from China, and the ash tree now plagued to near extinction due to the emerald ash borer. But there’s one more if you think about it… the person who decided to cut down the tree for whatever reason- it was growing in the wrong place, they don’t like shade, whatever reason people give to chop down trees. The only native thing (along with the ash stump) is the possum hiding inside the hollowed trunk. And who can blame him for hiding?