Cairns. (Cedar Post Prints)
Cairns are markers: sometimes they are monuments, sometimes grave markers, sometimes landmarks to keep you on a path. Cairns have been made by cultures scattered all over the world. They are usually made by stacking stones.
I found some old cedar posts put out for trash pickup while driving to work. An instinct told me to stop grab them as they could be useful in some artwork down the road. I have learned to trust that instinct. The posts sat in my studio for several years. From time to time I would try cutting them, carving them, joining them, or building them into some other work, but nothing felt right. Their weather-worn surfaces were so delicate and beautiful that something was lost whenever I tried to turn them into something else. It was as if the posts were saying to me, “We are enough, just as we are.”
Last year I decided to see if I could make prints of the posts. After a few experiments I found that if I dusted them with graphite powder and pressed them down onto dampened paper (a process similar to fingerprinting), I could get an image that showed most of the detail of the surface. Because the post had to be turned over quickly and pressed down with some force, there are also places in each print where the powder explodes out from the posts, creating ghost-like or smoke-like halos. That makes the posts seem both mysterious and ephemeral, which feels right to me.
Although I grew up in a city, I inherited my father’s love for the woods. Trees are often cairns for me, even if I wasn’t the one who planted them. Cedars, I realize, are markers a few times in my artistic journey. I still have a small scar on my hand from the time I tried to carve a car out of a chunk of cedar when I was seven (perhaps my first sculpture), and when I was in college, I made a “readymade” piece from two cedar posts strung with barbed wire that I hung in the gallery. That piece that started an argument by two art professors over the merit of the work and later got me in trouble when it scarred the wall so badly it had to be replaced. I remember that piece well.
I have learned to look for cairns in my life, especially in my faith. Often, when I try to look ahead, the path forward seems shrouded in mystery. But when I look behind, I can see cairns of God’s faithfulness in my life, and they often point the way forward. Or perhaps, when I am really struggling, they are less cairns on the path and more fence posts in a field, as God hems me in as in Psalm 139: “You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. . ..Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?”
I found some old cedar posts put out for trash pickup while driving to work. An instinct told me to stop grab them as they could be useful in some artwork down the road. I have learned to trust that instinct. The posts sat in my studio for several years. From time to time I would try cutting them, carving them, joining them, or building them into some other work, but nothing felt right. Their weather-worn surfaces were so delicate and beautiful that something was lost whenever I tried to turn them into something else. It was as if the posts were saying to me, “We are enough, just as we are.”
Last year I decided to see if I could make prints of the posts. After a few experiments I found that if I dusted them with graphite powder and pressed them down onto dampened paper (a process similar to fingerprinting), I could get an image that showed most of the detail of the surface. Because the post had to be turned over quickly and pressed down with some force, there are also places in each print where the powder explodes out from the posts, creating ghost-like or smoke-like halos. That makes the posts seem both mysterious and ephemeral, which feels right to me.
Although I grew up in a city, I inherited my father’s love for the woods. Trees are often cairns for me, even if I wasn’t the one who planted them. Cedars, I realize, are markers a few times in my artistic journey. I still have a small scar on my hand from the time I tried to carve a car out of a chunk of cedar when I was seven (perhaps my first sculpture), and when I was in college, I made a “readymade” piece from two cedar posts strung with barbed wire that I hung in the gallery. That piece that started an argument by two art professors over the merit of the work and later got me in trouble when it scarred the wall so badly it had to be replaced. I remember that piece well.
I have learned to look for cairns in my life, especially in my faith. Often, when I try to look ahead, the path forward seems shrouded in mystery. But when I look behind, I can see cairns of God’s faithfulness in my life, and they often point the way forward. Or perhaps, when I am really struggling, they are less cairns on the path and more fence posts in a field, as God hems me in as in Psalm 139: “You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. . ..Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?”