12 W x 16 3/4H x 10 D

Five Years after the Fire is a piece about rebirth and regeneration.  Driving through the |Mountain Parks or the Slave Lake area, many dead trees stand over protecting the new growth for many years after a forest fire has swept through.

 As I was creating this piece, I had a very innocent flash of deja vu, I had done this before as a kid at my Grandma Stratton’s place.  I have told this story before but years ago.  My Grandma would bring driftwood back from the west coast and buy little plastic trees and animals to glue onto the drift wood.  We would use the deer and moose first, then when we ran out of Canadian wildlife we would use the African animals and make the craziest scenes.  She would then take them to the farmer’s markets and craft sales, and among other things and sell them.  I really doubt any would still be around Tofield 35 or so years later but that brings back great memories of my Grandma.

So Grandma, here is your rock, instead of a drift wood, a tree on top and the animal represented by a real deer antler.  You taught me well, I’m guessing my pricing may be a bit more, but we will blame that on inflation.

 The trunk of the tree is also antler, these are sheds, antler the deer has knocked off and then the dogs drag them home, there are no shortage of teeth marks in this one.

I am very proud with the quality of work for this show and the pieces in it.  This tree reminds me of the tree in Summer Cedar, one of my most popular tree forms to date, both use serpentine.

 Below is a close up of the tree with the antler trunk.  This was actually the base of the Y in the antler splitting off into two directions so I broke them apart like a wish bone, you can see the break straight on below.  I hope this piece brings someone tremendous luck.