Friendship Tree

This project encouraged students to engage with the history of our bog land and landscape.
Artists Inspiration: In pre-Christian times, the trees, oak and the yew were sacred and valued. As I began to understand their history, I felt that I was connecting with my ancestors, reaching back into something ancient. There is a five-thousand-year-old energy and hope that I am doing the right thing by it. I want the energy to keep moving through the sculpture. Bog wood is a beautiful and difficult material, like stone, very dense to carve. I peel off the dead bark to reveal the flow of the magnificent roots. It’s not a design process but you have to find the form within something that exists already.