Russian Olive + Brass - Selkirk Avenue - 13"

Why this one exists

From the teardrop series, carved from the same Selkirk Avenue tree as the other olives in this collection. Instead of leaving the teardrop's oval full, I scooped two deep sections out of it, so the piece plays a shape game: face it head-on and it reads as an oval; step to the side and it becomes a comma, a pause carved in wood. Scalloped is the closest word I have found and it is still not quite right, which feels appropriate for a form that refuses to sit still. The brass inlay and the olive wood play beautifully together, warm metal against pale, storm-figured grain. No function this time. Purely sculptural: made for looking, and for whatever the shape does to you from wherever you stand.

It stood here

The Selkirk Avenue Russian olive: the leafless tree I had taken down before it could fall on the house, traded back to its owners as vases, its ant-hollowed core full of phomopsis. Every olive piece in this collection came from it. The pin marks the avenue; the address stays theirs.

The day the tree came down

Filmed on Selkirk Avenue in July 2024: the tree this piece was carved from, coming down before it could take the house with it. Very few pieces of wood anywhere can show you this moment.

Every side of it