I stop by from time to time to visit Richard Reames’ Arborsmith Studios website because I’m fascinated by the ways that he and others can turn living trees into art. He devotes a page to one arborsculpture pioneer and favorite of mine, Axel Erlandson, and links to other arborsculpture artists around the world.
Erlandson started bending, shaping and grafting trees in the ’20s, and opened his ‘Tree Circus’ attraction in 1947 on the well-traveled route between the Santa Clara Valley and the Pacific coast. That’s his daughter, Wilma, who wrote “My Father Talked to Trees.” Reames sells that book, his own Arborsculpture – Solutions for a Small Planet and other books and supplies at his site.
As I was surfing once again through the links on Reames funky and fun site, I was happy to find that he started new Arborsculpture blog, apparently last winter. Worth adding to your RSS feeds if you are interested in this kind of stuff, and who isn’t?
Here’s a short (3:39) video by Reames: