The Perfect Color

Well, it’s been a few days. I honestly thought I’d be here sooner, but life has a way of changing our plans. Today, I want to tell you more about how my tree sculpture came to be, the initial reason, the inspiration behind the creative process, and the historical aspects that were included in the final sculpture.

First, the initial reason for creating my sculpture was to fulfill an obligation I had for two different school projects. I needed to choose either a writing assignment or a creative endeavor, and as you can see, I chose the latter. The theme of the first course was focused on death and dying, and the theme of the second course was focused on historical languages. I immediately began to think about certain people who I’d lost in my lifetime and thought of a poem I’d written after the death of my grandfather called “The Perfect Color.” That poem became the first part of my inspiration for the project since it fully encompassed the love my grandfather had for nature. My grandfather played a big part in my life and was the greatest loss I’ve ever known. In my eyes, he was one of the kindest souls I’ve ever met, and he taught me to appreciate nature in a way nobody else ever has. My grandfather served in the Navy during WWII, and after serving our country, he became a carpenter so he could provide for my grandmother and their four children. He very much enjoyed gardening and spending time at the beach whenever he wasn’t working, and as you can see from my poem below, I tried to incorporate many of the things he loved.

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The Perfect Color

Robin’s egg blue
Takes me back to you

You were the loveliest creature
I memorized your every feature

But cornflower days
Were never long stays

I had you for just a short while
Amidst the decaying dandelion pile

You should’ve had more
A bit of forest green to explore

Instead the pacific blue
Became your life-long hue

Those sea green and periwinkle days
Formed all of your mahogany ways

You stayed purple mountain majesty true
To your olive green and cadet blue

Carnation pink and brick red brown
Followed you into the burnt orange ground

And bittersweet left the taste of gray
As the sky-blue in your eyes faded away

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This poem always chokes me up and I miss my grandfather more than I could ever express. So, to be able to create a sculpture in his honor was very special to me and I’m sure it won’t be the last thing I create with him in mind.

The second thing I focused on was how I could represent language in my sculpture, and that’s where my idea for incorporating runes was born. I’d been studying ancient languages and decided to represent language in its most basic symbolic form. Runes also hold spiritual significance, which was another way I knew I could tie everything together since my grandfather was deeply spiritual, and I am too. With all those thoughts in mind, I began to sketch out ideas in my head, and it didn’t take long after that for everything to begin taking shape.

Next time, I will cover the materials I used, the process of creating my sculpture and some of the problems I faced along the way. Until then, I hope all of you have a wonderful rest of your week. Love you guys… ~Ellie xoxo