Description
Startled by Bruce Edmundson
“Burls are an aberrant or deformed growth on the side of a tree that “is typically a result of some form of stress such as an injury or a viral or fungal infection.” They are gnarly with bark and scabrous with pustules of dormant buds straining to break out from underneath. Off the tree, they are heavy and awkward with hundreds of sharp thorny little knots that cut and sting. They can be both ruined and enhanced by insect infested pockets of rot, and bizarre undulations of soft bark and iron like knots throughout. For the carver, they always surprise, and always beget a lot of sawdust.
During this piece, it struck me that, notwithstanding its aesthetically unpleasant beginnings, the burl was a bit nervous, even shy, and appeared to be startled by what it had become, once shed of its exterior trappings.” – Bruce Edmundson