The Sisters

Two forms, standing side by side.

They came out of the inlets along the North Carolina coast, pulled from the water on shrimping runs. Nothing here was carved. Every ridge, hollow, and split was cut by water, salt, and time.

The wood was sealed in polyurethane to hold it exactly as it was found, then permanently mounted on a solid pine base built by hand for these two pieces alone. Wood and base are one piece.

We call them the Sisters. They lean toward one another without touching — different heights, different grain, shaped by the same water.

Details

• Dimensions: 12" W × 7¼" D × 11½" H, including base
• Materials: Natural driftwood, polyurethane sealed finish, hand-built pine base, stained
• Origin: The inlets and coastal waters of North Carolina
• Permanently mounted — the pieces do not lift off the base
• One of a kind — this piece will not be repeated

The name is only one side

Turn this piece and it becomes something else.

That 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.

So 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.

Carved by water

Not 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.

What 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.

Care

Dust with a dry, soft cloth. Keep out of direct sunlight and away from moisture. For indoor display.