Tree

The Big Tree has seen many gatherings

I have a deep respect of the tree which has been nurtured from the very beginning by my family.

I grew up just around the corner from a huge River Red gum (Eucalyptus Camaldulensis) , which is one of the largest of its species in Australia. It has a 10 meter girth and was a meeting place for the aborigines before white man appeared.

I spent many days playing and climbing around its branches and have always been in awe and held a deep respect for its existence. This experience has nurtured a great love and the inspiration to capture the essence of trees in art. Old growth trees are rapidly disappearing from the earth and with them many creatures which need them to survive. These glass sculptures explore the vital importance of trees on the earth.

The irony of making these glass trees is that the furnaces of all the ancient glass workshops of the past 2000 years were fuelled by burning timber. I am very conscious of the energy consumed in making glass and have focused on fuel efficient technologies as well as using a recycled glass made from solar panels.

Marguerite and I were married beneath a large River Red gum on Susan Island in the Clarence River.

Poetic Tributes

Ancient, Timeless, Powerful, Growth.
“Trees are by far the oldest living organisms on the planet” David Suzuki

“I am the voice of wind and wave and tree, of stern desires and blind, of strength to be…….
Charles G D Roberts,”Antochton”

“Trees warp time”. John Fowles, The Tree

As Buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great tree of life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever-branching and beautiful ramifications. Charles Darwin, “The Origin of the Species”

This Solitary tree! a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroyed.
Wordsworth