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The MAKING of DEMOKE
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Mesquite, Honduras Rosewood and Claro Walnut.
40”x 52”x 12”
1997
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A Book and some Bones
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I do not recall which came first, the book or the landscape littered with deer bones. It does not matter. They occurred within a month of each other. What I do remember is that soon afterwards, I would begin a series of drawings of sculpture. These ideas would eventually be realized in 1997 as the wood sculpture “Demoke”. I believe that if I can tell the story of this one sculpture, the reader will have a reasonable idea of my creative process.
In 1986, I was in my third season fighting forest fires for the U.S. Forest Service. I was working in some very remote corners of California, Oregon and Washington. I observed many strange and beautiful things. It is difficult to describe how stirring it is to see an old growth Lodgepole Pine explode into flame.
That was a busy season. However, I remember a rare day off in town and buying a San Francisco Chronicle. On the front page was an article announcing that the Nigerian writer, Wole Soyinka had been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. The Chronicle had excerpted a passage from Soyinka’s drama, “Dance of the Forest”. In it, the character “Demoke”, a wood carver, delivers an impassioned confession from the top of a tree. I was moved by this and resolved to purchase Soyinka’s “Collected Plays”. The book traveled with me from fire to fire, by bus and helicopter. Many of the themes in “Dance of the Forest” corresponded quite closely with the impressions that I was forming about our complex relationship with public lands and wilderness. I was becoming aware of how certain landscapes can be charged landmarks of memory.
Around this time, the fire crew was dispatched to Baker, Oregon. This is in the eastern part of the state, a high desert, sage and juniper woodland. We were hiking through an unburned area where we encountered an acre of land littered with hundreds of deer bones. There was no obvious evidence of what had happened to so many deer. Yet, it was perversely beautiful. It seemed like a community of spirits.
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Becoming a Carver
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Not long after this, I began drawing designs of wood sculpture. Though I did not yet understand what these drawings meant, I knew that they were the synthesized result of “Dance of the Forest” and that field of deer bones. The drawings depict freestanding sculptures constructed of wood slabs. Carved into the wood is the repeated motif of the isolated eye socket of a deer skull.
I began collecting tools and wood and with astonishing ignorance, began carving. I ruined sharpening stones and shattered tool handles. I had befriended the fine wood working community and they tried to help me by scrutinizing my joinery and the dullness of my gouges. Occasionally I would hire out to assist in milling Walnut trees with a chainsaw. I began to understand wood. In addition, I spent some time with the wood turner Del Stubbs forging and tempering knives. This germinated an initial understanding of tool steel and cutting edges.
Over time, I came into the possession of a fairly large slab of Mesquite wood. Mesquite is a dense, earthy wood that stains your hands black as you carve it. I drew the eye sockets of the deer skull directly onto this piece of wood and thus began the sculpture “Demoke”.
To combine with the Mesquite, I had been carefully curing a large section of trunk from a Pear tree. However, when we cut it open, we discovered that it was thoroughly rotten. I began immediately to check my sources for a replacement. I was able to procure a substantial piece of Honduras Rosewood. I set it up with the Mesquite and got the idea to carve a human hand into the Rosewood. The human hand that creates beauty and yet is capable of inflicting destruction. The hand of “Demoke” the wood carver.
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Getting to the Source
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What was all of this adding up to? I remember reading that John Steinbeck was aware of five different converging themes as he wrote “The Grapes of Wrath”. My sculpture was hand carved and developed slowly. As I worked, different layers of subject matter would become revealed.
Why did I isolate the eye socket of the deer skull and repeat it side by side? In part to intentionally confuse the viewer. By isolating this detail, I am able to obscure its meaning. I learned the value of this while beachcombing. I will occasionally discover an artifact that the ocean has broken, tumbled and polished beyond recognition. The original meaning has become a mystery and I believe there is great power in this. By repeating the detail, I can further obscure the meaning and allude to the community of spirits suggested by the field of deer bones.
Sometimes the fragmented artifacts that we find are man-made. We do not know if they are from a boat or dwelling. I allude to this through the wood joinery that connects the components of the sculpture. This is not a cosmetic treatment. The joinery must be structurally integral.
This is in part, a result of the responsibility I feel working with hardwoods from all over the world. Some of my wood is rare and even endangered, so I try to honor the privilege I have to work with it. Not only do I love the beauty and durability, wood contains a physical imprint of a place. Wood is a living material that moves with climatic changes. I have to understand and respect the grain and try to anticipate what it might do.
Earlier, I mentioned my growing awareness of “charged landmarks of memory”. I began to call this “Kinesthetic Memory.” This is a vague, yet critical element of this sculpture. It alludes to the notion that an ecosystem that has experienced a dramatic event has its own peculiar atmosphere. Anyone who has been to Wounded Knee in South Dakota can attest to the thick emotional scar that hangs in the air. The molecules move differently there. I am not concerned about literally depicting this in the woodcarving. What is important is how it colors and shades my thinking as I conceptualize the sculpture.
What do I see when I look at this finished sculpture called “Demoke”? I see an anthropomorphic artifact that is equal parts sleeping animal and fallen totem.
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