Franz Carl Nicolay
Franz Carl Nicolay: New Life and Wood Consciousness. The forest has a voice often expressed in trees and stone. In these wood sculptures, the process of uncovering this voice is one of reduction: selecting limbs, length, and orientation; then stripping bark, scraping, sanding, and oiling. The elements I’m attuned to in creation are balance, weight & weightlessness, texture, and of course, form. The first three are tactile, the latter is visual.
The process is slow and meditative, connecting with the material and allowing it to come forward, never pushing it in a direction of determination or pre-determination. The resultant piece retains its core connection expressed in natural growth, and reveals a new beauty through simplifying. It is a practice that speaks quietly, slowly; and suggests a storyline of imagination through visual metaphor.
The reimagined branch thus becomes a dowsing – rod conduit to our soul level of close observation, and intuitive understanding. Object of contemplation and joy.
The process is slow and meditative, connecting with the material and allowing it to come forward, never pushing it in a direction of determination or pre-determination. The resultant piece retains its core connection expressed in natural growth, and reveals a new beauty through simplifying. It is a practice that speaks quietly, slowly; and suggests a storyline of imagination through visual metaphor.
The reimagined branch thus becomes a dowsing – rod conduit to our soul level of close observation, and intuitive understanding. Object of contemplation and joy.