8 of 52 'MADERA VIEJA'

'MADERA VIEJA': ( 10 ¾ L x 17 ¾ W x 6” D) week of October 5th

As a kid, I was obsessed with dinosaurs. Because I related volcanoes with dinosaurs…. lava rock was the shit. My childhood buddy, Chad, had a good collection of rocks. A bit of pyrite, some fools gold, petrified wood, the average kid’s big rollers of a rounded collection. I remember his uncle sent him a chunk of lava rock. The idea of this rock and to actually hold this rock was to say the least a transcendental experience. I remember gently palming this basaltic lava and being completely floored by the idea that, this, was around when dinosaurs roamed the earth….simple deductions and assumptions, but all the same I was in awe of this rock. Shortly there after we moved to Bend, OR from El Toro, CA where my ideas about lava rocks shortly turned from lava rock stoke to hoe-hum lets break out the legos.

Since then, my appreciation of the high desert has grown and now jewels like 1000+ year old juniper trees that mark the landscape like prehistoric bones have become my lava rocks. Twisted and contorted, old growth juniper is a direct reflection of the environment it inhabits. Isamu Noguchi always talked about nature being the best artist. I couldn’t agree with anything more.

Madera Vieja is set into a frame that was found in Palm Springs. The background is MDF with laminate. The wood is old growth juniper. The brackets securing the wood are 1/8” flat bar steel.