TOLL

Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR.
2015

Toll was inspired by a poem titled “The Want Bone”, written by Robert Pinsky in 1990. The context of the sea in the poem and connections between wear and absence relate to the specific wood used to make the sculpture. The Douglas fir was salvaged from the lower hull of the historic schooner Wawona, a section of planks that was continuously under water for more than a century. The wear and degradation of the wood is most evident in the small gaps and voids in the sculpture’s surfaces. Sliced cylindrical voids present in numerous areas of the sculpture were once filled with oak dowels called trunnels. The trunnels joined the Douglas fir planks to the ribs of the vessel. Color variation leached into the grain from copper cladding, wrought iron, fish oils and decay. Many areas of the wood with the deepest color have become brittle and prone to splintering so an alternating cross-grain lamination tapering in thickness throughout the sculpture was chosen for its structural quality as well as for its aesthetic.

IMAGES

Toll, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR, 2015. Douglas fir salvaged from the historic schooner Wawona, 60” x 42” x 42”.