[martyslc]

Check out this tree in South Africa's "Walt Disney Worlds Animal Kingdom"

T H E ..RIGHT... S P O T - Awesome Tree in South Africa
Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World

It's called "The tree of life"

Really !

,
Marty

[Keoma]

wowsers-thanks for sharing!...look out trees in mmyyard...

[martyslc]

Yeah that would be cool. What we do is cool too because we can bring our work inside. LOL

[Clifford_Parker]

While Disney's "Tree of Life" is VERY cool what does it have to do with woodcarving? The tree is concrete sculpted on a steel and wire framework.

[AlArchie]

Cliff, I don't think this tree has as much to do with carving, as it has with the imaginative concepts that have gone into the artwork. Maybe there are some elements there for large relief carvings, or even some work on live trees, other than the regular "spirits". Can't you just see a cougar carved into a limb above a crotch in a large tree, or a bear peering out of a hollow stump?

Al

[Clifford_Parker]

Originally Posted by AlArchie

Can't you just see a cougar carved into a limb above a crotch in a large tree, Al

Al, I have seen a chainsaw carving that had a cougar crouched above a bighorn ram. This was not carved in a live tree but was an interesting and beautiful carving none the less.

[martyslc]

It just helped me broaden my eyes to what could be done in a piece of wood. Not a live tree but non the less.

[TommyPhillips]

Not even a dead tree, Marty. Steel, concrete, plastic, and fiberglass. Welded, poured, molded, and painted. The main structural skeleton is an old oil derrick.

Looks good, and fun, but I really don't find it inspiring from a wood carving perspective.

-Tommy

[chuckt]

Granted it wasn't carved, but I can certainly see how someone would find it inspiring. Inspiration seems to me to be a VERY individual thing - it is the basis for ALL artwork. Something triggers a response in each of us that drives our desire to express ourselves visually. For me some of the most inspirational things that I would like to carry into my wood carving came NOT from carvings but from some other media - stone work (like my avatar), photography (I particularly admire the work of Jerry Uelsmann), sculpters working in natural materials like Andy Goldsworthy, rustic furniture even like Dan Mack. Sometimes I think we can get very provincial in our narrow little "carving" world and forget that this is an art form like any other and inspiration can come from almost anywhere. Where does Lynn get his inspiration for his caricature work? Life around him - not just carving.

That's the way I see it anyway.

ChuckT

[TommyPhillips]

Good point, Chuck. Sorry for seeming disrespectful.

Reading your post also gave me a real flash from the past. In my late teens and early twenties, I was very heavily into photography. Seeing the name "Jerry Uelsmann" just brought all that up in a flash.

His darkroom-manipulated images were one of my inspirations back then. I had a darkroom set up in the basement, trying my hand at combining images, and I can suddenly smell the chemicals.

I just did a quick search, and I see that Uelsmann is still active. I wonder does he still work with film, paper, and chemicals, or has he gone digital? Regardless, he is still producing some hauntingly ambiguous images.

Thanks for the blast from the past.

-Tommy