My Wilmington NC gallery reached out to me and said they had a client who was interested in a tree of life sculpture. So I grabbed my sketch pad and got to work. I wanted to create a large old weathered tree and decided an oak would be a good model. I also wanted to include a circle as the tree of life is very frequently depicted within one and I find circles to be very elegant.

I also felt it was important to include the roots as tree of life art often refers to the connection between heavens and the underworld, and I find the balance beautiful: branching wood reaching out for sunlight while simultaneously branching down in the darkness for water and nutrients. So I came up with the sketch above and luckily the client liked the direction I was going and decided to work with me.

I was quite excited as I definitely wanted to create more trees. I had only created a couple up to this point and thoroughly enjoyed the process. I started by cutting out the various layers and burning the twigs to give them a more weathered natural feel. I also burnt in knots and burnt the roots into the ground to help create the illusion that they actually disappeared into the earth even though they were the same piece of metal.

I cut out foliage and colored speckles to bring in blues, golds and purples and help break them up to look more like leaves. I then colored everything using only torches and welded it all together with rod spacers to keep the foliage off the main tree to let it breathe, interlacing the roots below.

I was really happy with how this metal tree of life sculpture turned out and hope to get the opportunity to create more of this design as well as more unique tree designs!

I've also sculpted other trees in stainless steel: Live Oak Tree and Sequoia Tree.

This Tree of Life sculpture is wall hanging, made entirely of stainless steel, colored using only heat patinas, and must be kept indoors as the heat patina technique used on the trunk will eventually fade when exposed to the elements but will stay vibrant and iridescent if kept inside!