Salmon Bench 1998

The salmon bench was an idea whose time had not yet come. I carved these fishies out of a conglomerate called cantera stone. Two inches thick, this is the balsa wood of rocks. I perforated the piscatorial silhouettes with a hammer drill and broke them free of the stone. Before they swam away I took chisels and grinders to 'em and magically made dirt come to life. Don't laugh, a lot of really smart people believe that happened once before. Anyway, I inlaid them into a big slab of cottonwood which is one of the worst kinds of wood you ever want to work with. It can be pretty but it is twisty and punky and tears and rips and continues to warp and cup long after you think it's dried. Why use it? 'Cause it's cheap and available and you're in Mexico living off of dirt, (that has yet to come to life) that's why. The frame is made of iron which we heated in a hand-cranked forge and pounded and made into very cool split feet that looked like leafs and added some other hand-forged details. All this spells a lot of work...not to mention the magic that went into it. I made a series of benches and rocking chairs with elaborate, fancy appointments that were either way ahead of their time or...a little too out of fashion . A few of them sold and a couple ended up in various rooms of my house. I gave this one away to a friend with a house full of unruly kids with too many crayons, scissors and not enough dirt out in the back yard to play in. The last time I saw it, it was hard to even recognize through all the scratches and dings and graffiti. It should outlast most of us though. Maybe that says something about wood and steel....the main ingredients in dirt. Or maybe it says something about flaky artists with too much time on their hands...