The Wreck

A boat gone down, settled on the bottom.

That is what the artist saw when he set these pieces beside each other, and once you see it you cannot unsee it. Two lengths of driftwood, each bored through with tunnels and open chambers until they are more hole than wood, meeting at a seam in the middle. One collapses into deep round openings like a rotted deck. The other fans out in fine stacked layers, like planking pulling apart at the seams. Together they list.

Neither piece was carved, cut, or shaped. They came out of the inlets along the North Carolina coast, found on shrimping and fishing runs, already this way. All that was added was a clear varnish to hold the fragile structure, and a hand-built footed pine base, stained to set them on.

Details

• Dimensions: 8¼" W × 3½" D × 3¼" H, including base
• Weight: 6 oz
• Materials: Two pieces of natural driftwood, polyurethane sealed finish, hand-built footed pine base, stained
• Origin: The coastal inlets 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

Handle gently. This is the most delicate piece we make — the open structure is strong enough to last but not strong enough to be squeezed or dropped. Dust with a soft dry brush rather than a cloth, which can catch on the edges. Keep out of direct sunlight and away from moisture. For indoor display.