About Pushinfire

When I look at art of all mediums, old and new, I can’t help thinking about how artists decide what to create and what type of surface to create their masterpieces on.

There is such variety of backgrounds: canvas, cave walls, cathedral ceilings, landscapes, stones, and countless others. I am always amazed at what the artist ultimately sees in their mind’s eye.

For Example, architects see a brick or a piece of lumber as a complete building. The early Greeks saw marble stones as temples, or sandstone as a simple home. People that have a vision look at a blank wall and turnip into something that will make other say “WOW! How did they do that?” To me, this is where all great masterpieces start, with the artist looking at a blank page or a stone, or in my case, an old piece of wood. Artists can take days or even months staring into what seems like outer space, and then the idea takes shape. 

I grew ip in Eatonville, Washington, and when I look at old trees, or walk though the woods in the Pacific Northwest, I don’t just see trees - I see people. To me, trees are much like people - some are short, others are tall, and all have their unique quirks. We live with the trees; they give us oxygen to breathe, and in return, we exhale carbon dioxide for them.

Trees have been around forever and live much longer than we do. They give us food, shelter, provide places for animals to hide and build their nests, and they live and die just like we do.

It pains me to see a forest burn or get cut down, but then I realize that in the short time we live, the trees grow back and survive so our children can enjoy their beauty and gifts. Trees are the oldest living things on earth; even after we harvest them for lumber, they give us something great. I am often awestruck at how much trees give us. 

To me, taking a piece of wood, cleaning it, and sanding away the imperfections is my way of giving back to the natural order of the universe. In the time it takes two sand out the scars of time, the wood begins to show yet another page of its life. The wood’s grain or growth rings tell us how old it is and how hard the weather has affected it. Even after chopping a tree downwind cutting it into a thousand pieces, there is always another page to read.

 Whether the wood has been used as a beam to support the great pyramids of Giza for three thousand years, or the the elements have turned it into a piece of petrified rock, it can be cleaned and turned into an open page. 

I like old, used-up pieces of wood that have been thrown away or forgotten in a storehouse or woodshed. Simply by sanding off the layers of the weather-beaten dust-blown surface, any piece of wood will begin to showiest natural beauty again. Sanding the rough edges of the wood allows me to see the different shades of it. This along with reading the grain pattern of the wood, makes images leap off the surface at me. 

Burning the basic lines of a picture into the page of wood allows me to see the details and other images brought out by its grain. The cracks become tree trunks or branches, the center heart becomes ripples in a lake, or clouds, and the natural colors are perfect of a sunset or an elk’s fur. Worm holes become rocks or birds, and even the smell of the freshly cut wood has its own unmistakable fragrance when I’m placing the hot iron to shade the mountain rock or a background grassland.

As I work the wood, I wonder how many elk or moose have rubbed the felt off of their antlers on the tree’s trunk. I wonder how many birds have built their nests in the branches, or how many squirrels have lived in the tree tops cutting off the pinecones these old giants have produced of so many years. 

I believe my artistic eye is a gift from our Heavenly Father that I can use to remind people of how much we need to see the beauty in all things. No matter how old or ugly the piece of wood is, it can be restored into a work of art. It seems to shout, “I’m not dead! I have so much more to give!”

I live in wonderment of the awe inspiring trees and thank God for the art these Lost Pages can produce.