Willow - Steinbach - 10"

Why this one exists

Willow, a wood I had never carved before this haul. It is incredibly light with a beautiful texture, so I set myself a single goal: the lightest bowl I could possibly make. This one weighs almost nothing, feather light in the hand, and the colours are fantastic. The first form, honestly, was not a well made bowl; it came from maybe my first six months of carving. It went back on the bench and was reshaped into what the wood deserved. I took three pieces of willow from that pile. The other two sold years ago. This is the last one.

It stood here

I found this tree from the air. I was shooting an acreage just outside Steinbach for a real estate listing, and while the drone was up I spotted a wood pile you could see from altitude: thirty feet by sixty, a dozen feet tall, everything the owner had salvaged after a tornado took his trees down. In that pile was willow. I asked, and drove home with three pieces. Sometimes the camera finds the wood. The pin marks Steinbach's edge; the acreage itself stays private.

Every side of it