{"product_id":"paradise-bird","title":"Paradise Bird","description":"\u003cp\u003eIt doesn’t take long to see the bird.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA long tail sweeping back. A breast lifted. A head turned like it just caught something on the wind. None of it was carved — the water did all of it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis piece came out of the inlets along the North Carolina coast, pulled from the water on shrimping runs. The pale rings across its back are barnacles, still sitting where the sea left them. They are the record of how long it drifted before it came ashore.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe wood was sealed in polyurethane, then raised on wood dowels above a hand-built pine base, stained so it reads as a bird in flight rather than a bird at rest. No metal anywhere in the piece — wood holding wood.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eDetails\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDimensions: 15¾\" W × 4\" D × 11¾\" H, including base\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMaterials: Natural driftwood with intact barnacles, polyurethane sealed finish, wood dowel mounts, hand-built pine base, dark stained\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOrigin: The inlets and coastal waters of North Carolina\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePermanently mounted — the sculpture does not lift off the base\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOne of a kind — this piece will not be repeated\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe name is only one side\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eTurn this piece and it becomes something else.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat is true of everything we make, and it is the reason none of these sculptures has a front. We name each one for what we saw first — the angle that stopped us. Rotate it a quarter turn and the figure you were looking at is gone, and a different one is standing there. Ridges become a face. A wing becomes a wave. A crowd becomes one body.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSo the name is our reading, not an instruction. Set it whichever way it speaks to you, and turn it again when it stops. People who live with these pieces tend to move them a few times a year without quite deciding to.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eCarved by water\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eNot one line in this wood was cut by a blade. Every groove, hollow, and ridge was worked slowly — by salt, by tide, by years in the water — along a coast that has fed and carried people for generations. We think of these as pieces already carved by hands older than ours and left on the shore to be found.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat we do is small by comparison. We find them, we preserve them as they are, and we give them a base to stand on so they can be seen. Sometimes two pieces are set together because they belong together — but the wood itself is never cut, shaped, stained, or painted. Nothing is corrected. The wood says what it already had to say.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eCare\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eDust with a dry, soft cloth and a light touch around the barnacles, which are original and fragile. Keep out of direct sunlight and away from moisture. For indoor display.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Red Velvet Pumpkin Patch","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53724155969829,"sku":"DW-002","price":225.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0684\/1230\/9797\/files\/ParadiseBird1DW-002.png?v=1788480564","url":"https:\/\/thevelvetpumpkin.com\/products\/paradise-bird","provider":"The Red Velvet Pumpkin Patch","version":"1.0","type":"link"}