In a creative blizzard of white wood chips, master chainsaw sculptor and world-class artist Skip Armstrong conjured up the spirit of Mother Earth during the Oak Street Block Party in downtown Sisters on June 20.
The medium was a canted, twelve-foot pine tree trunk left over from a tree-trimming procedure last Spring between The Clearwater Gallery and Sisters Coffee Company.
Residents and visitors gathered to sample coffees and teas and watch the wizardry of Armstrong as he transformed the bare Ponderosa pine tree into a majestic embodiment of nature with chainsaws, Dremel tools and a wildly potent imagination.
See video by Joe Leonardi: www.cascadeae.com/regional-art/sisters/2510-cloaked-in-wisdom-and-wildness-
Elegantly created in the style of old-fashioned sailing ship figureheads, the nude goddess gazes into the sky, adorned and enveloped in owls, wolves, cougars, otters and a butterfly.
“I call it She’s Cloaked in Wisdom as a nod to the wise owls,” said Armstrong, stopping his wood-shaving machines for a moment to regard his inspiring sculpture. “She’s a personification of Mother Earth as a sort of Gaia princess and the beautiful Earth Ship we’re living on.
“It’s also the wisdom born in nature and the wildness we need to preserve. I’m going to leave it chainsaw-rough and let it emerge from the tree. I may even toss in a fish or two to cover all the basic phyla of our Earth and all of its passengers.”
Armstrong spent over 16 hours manifesting the awe-inspiring statue as onlookers marveled at the detail and design of his impressive Mother Earth. The project was partially funded and supported by The Clearwater Gallery and Sisters Coffee Company. When completed, the pine sculpture was finished with multiple coats of a basic transparent oil to seal, protect and preserve the natural color.
“I wanted to bring us back to Nature a little bit, after being so inundated with technology and electronic gadgets,” he explained. “Leaning the way the tree was leaning, it worked out perfectly imagined as the bowsprit figurehead of an old sailing vessel. We’re all sailing on this same Earth Ship.”
