Story of the Piece: Chillin'

Some pieces are about the creatures you observe from a distance. This one is about the ones that share your life.

We have skinks everywhere at our place. Blue-tongues, garden skinks, all manner of lizard going about their business in the sun with a confidence that suggests they were here first and they know it. Pete used to hand-feed them — they'd come right up to him, utterly unbothered. We don't encourage that anymore, because we have housecats and the last thing we want is a skink deciding the back step is a safe place to be. But we watch them. We always watch them. Their antics are endlessly entertaining.

This log called to me and the skink arrived with it — draped across the top the way they drape themselves across everything here, completely relaxed, completely in charge, completely chillin'. The name wrote itself.

The skink has claimed the best spot on the log and has no intention of giving it up.

Chillin' is one of the last three small natural timber mushroom log pieces I will make. My practice is moving toward bigger stories, larger scales, more complex narratives. But these small worlds taught me something important about looking closely, about finding the life already waiting in a piece of timber, about the joy of making something just because it delights you. That's not nothing. That's actually everything

Materials: found natural timber, preserved moss, resin skink, glow int he dark handmade mushrooms

Dimensions: 26cm (l) x 20cm (h)

Price: $500