What’s beautiful about this branch? How can I amplify that?
It has a pleasing curve. Beneath the grey oxidized bark, the color of the wood is creamy white surrounding a dark red center.
Objective: show off both the curve and the color contrast of the wood.
The branch is split along the curve. Now there are two identically curved sections (brains like symmetry) showing the color, light to dark. Double the beauty!
Here it’s been flattened and sanded to show the color and grain. By mirroring the pieces, the curve is amplified.
Because the branch was sitting in the forest, expanding and contracting with the weather, it has lots of cracks. Manzanita will crack even while alive. These are history and shouldn’t be hidden, but need to be treated so they don’t spread.
Large cracks get filled with wood slivers and small ones with sawdust.
Where I live, at the edge of the forested Sierra foothills and grassy Central Valley, each year is hotter and more trees die. The forest thins and grassland creeps further up the mountain.
Everything made of deadwood is a memorial, showing the beauty of what was lost.
Since I can’t fix the forest, I fix the wood.
Here it is with cracks filled.
The pieces need to be joined, so a slice of the branch is used. The angle marked so it will fit correctly.
The slice is shaped against a disk sander so everything is smooth and lines up.
Fit looks good. A second piece is made the same way with a hole drilled to hold flowers.
The second piece also has a crack and gets filled with slices.
Fit looks good, cracks filled.
Everything lines up. Now to make dowels to hold it together.
Precious dowels! It’s easier to buy these, but making them matches the wood and satisfies the requirement of everything coming from the branch.
Holes drilled, dowels pounded in. The ends where the pieces meet were rounded because trees have no edges.
The result. To finish it, everything was brushed in hemp oil and rubbed with beeswax.
Hopefully it goes in someone’s home and brings happiness. A fitting afterlife for a beautiful tree.
