Story of the Piece: Snails Pace

I have always loved small things.

Snails have fascinated me since I was a child — there is something about a creature that carries its home on its back and moves through the world at exactly its own pace that I find quietly magnificent. I played with giant snails in Bali not long ago, and that same feeling came back immediately. Pure delight. No hurry. Just presence.

In a world that never stops rushing, snails are a gentle reminder that life does not have to be fast. That slowness is not failure. That taking your time is its own kind of wisdom.

This log called to me the way they always do — I look at a piece of natural timber and I don't see what it is, I see what it wants to become. This one wanted creatures. It wanted moss and mushrooms and the unhurried company of snails. The mushrooms are handmade, each one unique, shaped by hand and placed where the log asked for them. The moss is real. The snails found their own spots and stayed there.

Snails Pace 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 timber, handmade mushrooms, miniature snails, preserved moss

Dimensions: 30cm x 10cm

Price: $450