Forged Steel Life Sculpture - SOLD

 

The artist works with passion when a piece stirs a memory. Often they are hard to finish. When you choose to freeze a moment in time with your work, life in, around and up in a tree is a natural thing to think about. Swing's and Tree houses were time well spent.

Walter grew up playing under giant Pecan trees in Middle Georgia. The lower part of middle Georgia where accents were thick and they grew peaches and pecans with pride on trees generations old. In the summer they were a daily universe for the drama and comedy of cousins growing up together. In the winter projects lay unfinished and abandoned waiting for the spring to bring life back in and under their huge branches.

               

You will have to follow along to understand the full meaning of this hammer sculpted art work.

A Story to be Told

Walter's family, like over 73,000 other military families, had some one who didn't come home. Staff Sgt. Joel Matthews was shot down over Palau in 1944. His B24 Liberator, the was never found and Miss Hattie lost the first of all three of her sons. 

Louise or Lulu as she is known to us spent many years trying to find out more details and held out hope for years that he would still be alive. But it wasn't until she passed away and a carefully preserved box of letters and newspaper clippings  led us to many details of Joels' last flight and a story that continues on today.

The technology of the day has made impossible things possible. The unfolding story was a sobering realization of the horrible loss of WWII. Over 73,000 missing in action in addition to the confirmed dead. Every street in every community lived in fear of seeing the western union man walking up the dirt drive way with one of the telegrams. We still have that sad bit if family history.

The story is amazing and will come to the blog soon. 

"Meet me at the Tree house" is dedicated to all those young men who never made it back to that place of innocence where a young boy could play under neath a big old tree and dream about a future that was never meant to be.

 

We are grateful to the members of Project Recover and their dedication to the work of bringing our fallen home and telling the stories that need to be told. 

Skilled Hands and an Artist Eye for Detail

This forged iron sculpture is hammered from solid steel stock. The labor intensive process required over 250 hours of forge work in addition to over 40 hours spent cleaning and hand buffing the layers of black bees wax that coat over 130 hand hammered tapers and detail elements. 

"Meet Me at the Tree House" stands approximately 32 inches tall and 36 inches in diameter. The base that creates the hill is a recycled disc from a vintage potato cultivator and is 18 inches in diameter. The finish is a earth brown dye oxide patina and layers of hand buffed black and brown bees wax.

The forged iron art work showcases the the skill of the artist hand and the natural elements of steel sculpture that are an important visual asset. Light plays a vital role as the metal reflects points of light and shadows change as the day light angles alter with the sun. Colors in a room will gently tone the metal that faces objects nearby. In the right location the tree becomes an ever changing work of art  that will catch the eye at unexpected times.

The subject matter speaks to the heart and memory of most any one that ever played outside under a tree. It was a labor of love for Walter and honored a memory of someone we grieved for but never knew. A portion of this purchase will be donated to Project Recover for their tireless work for those who made such great sacrifices.

This work is available for purchase and can be seen at the Forge. Persons with interest should contact us directly for information.

©Copyright Walter Howell 2020. All Rights Reserved.