folded steel, pine, and plywood —
a water stained sheet of steel caught my eye as I was looking for scrap material. I was learning to weld and cut at the time, finally facing my fears. I remembered a pine tree my family had felled the summer of 2013. Summer night fires were the obsession of that year. I remember cutting up the logs into 12 inch tall pie slices. Thinking that when arranged in a ring an interesting fire could be produced. The pine however was not going to be burned that year. The wood was too wet. As life tends to go the wood was forgotten for a couple years finally to be remembered in the spring of 2015.
The pine and the steel each had a similar textural quality, even a similar story. Both forgotten, aged with time, rotted or corroded by water. A relationship that needed some introducing.
Sliced and staggered pine, plasma cut and folded steel. Joined at last.
measure, break, fold, weld.
My experimentation with the stratification of plywood is only beginning to crawl. The plywood blocks were added to give a softness to the folded steel. Instead of an imposing stained and black object, now with the collaboration with the plywood, the steel takes on a protector role. Shielding the plywood. Shading.
