Burning Bush

March 2020, during the COVID lockdown, walking locally, near the La Pierre aux Oeufs near Saint Chaffrey. I found a curious Pine tree root.  It was fairly solid, and had some lovely twisting in the wood, and the characteristic initial curve of the Alpine trees.  It was dry enough to work on.

To hollow out the piece I fashioned a 40cm long drill head using a simple piece of reinforcing steel.    The rest was with manual tools.

I enhanced the colour internally with a slightly tinted varnish, and left the external colour natural with a transparent lacquer. 

For a base, I found a stone in the same mountain area, in a gully dug out during the period of mining.  The stone has an incredible mixture of textures and colours, with some glazed areas, so perhaps it had been part of a furnace, and seemed perfect for the base of a perpetually Burning Bush!

The metal stake mount was just the broken off prong from a garden tool.

Materials: Pine wood, stone, steel, lacquer, varnish

Dimensions: 1000m x 500mm x 200mm

Completion: 4/2020