Large Abstract Reclaimed Wood “Sculpture”

We decided to put this in our second home. Dimensions: Height 26 inches; Width 27 inches; Diameter of tree slice roughly 13 inches; Thickness of tree slice roughly 2 inches; Thickness of middle piece roughly 1.5 inches; Base piece is 4 inches square, Feet are 8 inches front to back, 1.75 inches square; Vertical dowels are 7/8 inch in diameter; Weight 17 pounds. Sometimes with the stuff I find, I’m inspired to create art. This is the second piece I’ve made with generally similar components and composition. I don’t know why it appeals to me but it just does. It’s squat and sturdy and seems kind of primitive. The first five pictures below are of one side; the final five are of the other side. If I had a home gallery, I’d keep it, but if you really like it and want to show it off in your home or office, let me know. Was asking $225.

The Story

Out running one day on Arizona Avenue in D.C., I spotted a cross-section from a tree (I don’t know what kind) that had just been cut down. I drove back later and grabbed it, then stashed it in my basement for many weeks to dry out. I spent a lot of time with a hand saw cutting away a wedge-shaped section to make the piece more uniformly thick. I used a belt sander and then hand sanding to smooth down both sides. The curved piece in the middle started out as a rectangular section of a laminated beam that I found in a dumpster outside a house being renovated in my Glover Park neighborhood. I thought all the layers would provide a lot of visual interest and texture, complementing the tree rings. I used a jigsaw to cut out the desired curving shape, and then a router to give the edges an initial radius. Next, I used a belt sander, starting with a really rough grit, to sand away a lot of the wood and reveal even more layers. I used increasingly smoother belts and then hand sanding to achieve the final smooth abstract shape. The base came from a rough, gray piece of lumber that a neighbor gave me. I had no idea what kind of wood it was until I cut it and found, much to my surprise, a gorgeous center-cut piece of walnut, with its rich, dark grain. Fantastic! I used my miter saw to cut it to the desired length/shape, then used a belt sander and hand sanding to smooth it down. For front-to-back stability in the whole piece, not to mention more visual interest, I cut two short lengths out of a square pine dowel (from Home Depot), then used a router to cut out grooves that the walnut piece could nestle down into. I used Watco Danish Oil as the finish coat to protect and bring out the natural colors of all the main pieces (instead of shinier polyurethane). I drilled holes, cut the dowel segments, painted them black, and glued the pieces together one at a time.

Related Item: Abstract Upcycled Wood “Sculpture.”