A commanding and complex font-like vessel dramatically sited within the single cell building, Simmer Down is comprised of hundreds of small, oak pots which encrust a sycamore crucible. Each vessel has been burnt, causing the oak to change from rich honey to dark and ominous black.

Mae Simmer Down yn llestr tebyg i ffont, wedi’i leoli’n ddramatig o fewn yr adeilad un gell, yn cynnwys cannoedd o botiau derw bach sy’n gorchuddio crucible masarn. Mae pob llestr wedi’i losgi, gan achosi i’r derw newid o fêl cyfoethog i ddu tywyll a bygythiol.

Wood artist and arborist Robert George draws on his varied experiences of timber and trees to create a technically demanding series of large-scale crucibles. Using a mixture of storm-felled oak and saw-felled sycamore, turned on a lathe and worked using traditional hand tools, these culturally significant timbers help to tell a story of our new world and how we can cope in it. The series, entitled Simmer Down, pushes the boundaries of what can be created while using standard tooling, and opens the door to a new, experimental direction in the artist’s work – using entropy, highly finished surfaces and scale to create juxtaposition and invite a tactile and humbling response while paying homage to the trees he has taken from.

www.robertgeorge.co.uk

Photos by Mud and Thunder.

RESOURCE FOR MEDITATION

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver ...
Malachi 3.2-3

The concept of being refined by fire is repeated in the Bible as an image of God’s deep love for humanity. A refiner’s fire does not destroy the material, rather it allows the dross to rise up to the surface so that it can be removed. A refiner’s fire does not consume, it makes the material stronger and more valuable.

A piece of wood can be burned but cannot be ‘unburned’; it is an irreversible process. Many physical processes can go in only one direction in time. In an isolated system undergoing change, entropy – the degradation from order to chaos, increases over time.

• In this increasingly frenetic and damaged world, imagine a place where all that is dross has been removed – pray for strength and beauty in this place.

• Recall an experience of being tested to your core – notice the textures and colours you have become.

• Imagine something precious you carry inside you that is encrusted in black.

Written by Julia Porter Pryce for Art and Christianity