Thursday, May 1, 2014

What to do with the stump and the old man?

The man is resting on the stump enjoying himself, wondering how he can give something back to the tree. Because he is so old and tired, he decides to lean back and take a nap. While sleeping, he dies peacefully. It lightly snows and eventually covers him up. Throughout the seasons that follow, his body decomposes into the ground around the stump, becoming rich nutrients for the soil.

With this added nourishment, after many years, a leaf begins to sprout from the stump. It is the beginning of a new life for the tree stump. As the years pass, apples begin to appear on the tree. The man gives the stump his life as it gave him throughout his life.

A possible sculpture could be a tree stump with one limb that has an apple hanging from it.

Beginning Woodwork

For me, working in wood was fun, yet aggravating at times. It took a lot of getting used to and familiarizing myself with the tools and saws. Once I started to get a feel for the tools, it got easier to cut wood in the right sizes and shapes I needed. I enjoyed painting on the wood, which is something I haven't done before. It was nice to work in wood because I never have before, but I probably won't use it much anymore.

Something that I needed to actually do was practice using the tools before cutting the pieces I needed for my box. It would have been hard to visualize this at the beginning, but when cutting the strips of my piece, the sides sort of shrunk. I needed to understand how to account for how much it changed in size in order to cut the correct size pieces for the other sides of the box.