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RESOURCES / Artists & Musicians / James Phillips
James Phillips
When I was a child, my mother taught me to draw and encouraged me to appreciate the beauty in nature. After a 30 year hiatus from creating art, I felled a tree and began sketching on the fallen trunk with a chainsaw. Seeing a recognizable form emerge from the log was mesmerizing, and remains a magical experience for me today. I am most at home near the shore and prefer coastal marine life subjects, but I find beauty in all subjects that are free of straight lines and flat planes. I harvest wood from fresh-cut trees bound for disposal. I have no particular wood preference as I have experimented with a dizzying number of tree species and conclude that all wood is beautiful. The infinite variation in color and grain ensures that each piece is an original and impossible to precisely duplicate. I find my designs by sculpting small clay models of the desired subject and contorting them into a form that pleases my eye. The rough shape is cut with a gas chainsaw, and the form is refined with grinders and chisels, followed by a find sanding and the application of a sealer and multiple final finish coats. I tend to start and work on several pieces at a time and complete each in 20-30 hours spread over several weeks. |
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ARTreach is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that provides mentoring and art-related programs to a growing population of children at risk, children and adults with special needs, the elderly and others in need.
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