Part of a trilogy about wood.
A woodshop in the wild
In one of the forests nearby, a mysterious workshop produces artwork out of wood logs. Pass and know some of their pieces.
This is the woodshop. It is right at the heart of this forest, which I transit by bike a few times every year. Around 5 meters high, this is the place where the artists work. Whoever they are, I’ve never seen any of them! But clearly, each piece takes at least several days to produce, because you often can see them evolve if you pass by in consecutive days or weeks.
Let’s give a look at some of the pieces they produce and spread throughout this forest.
First something “easy”: a “simple” seat. I used “” because despite looking simple, if you look close you’ll see many details such as the cozy armrests:
Now let’s go to the art. The first piece is a Pokemon-like lizard with a seat inside. Almost 2 meters high and sculpted from a single piece of wood:
Then there’s a piece of DNA, the molecule that holds and transmits our genomic information:
Right in front of the workshop, this old wooden statue receives the visitors:
These two wood statues represent an important element of the forest: fungi. The one on the left resembles a morel, a quite common kind of mushroom around here. The one on the right is harder to classify because many mushrooms look like that, but I’m sure its sculptor was thinking about a specific kind.
Want to see some cool fungi? Check this out:
All around the woodshop, there are three or four piles of source material, some under fungi attack:
But what is this woodshop doing here? -you may ask. At least I did ask myself. And I found the answer, right behind it: here the local commune carves the posts used to build fences. The photo shows a few hundred posts ready to be used (in fact the tilted sign translates to “Ready / 2021 / 1.7 m”):
I am a nature, science, technology, programming, and DIY enthusiast. Biotechnologist and chemist, in the wet lab and in computers. I write about everything that lies within my broad sphere of interests. Check out my lists for more stories. Become a Medium member to access all stories by me and other writers, and subscribe to get my new stories by email (original affiliate links of the platform).