Evds2702marks’s Weblog

The lecture by Ted McLachlan this past Thursday discussed the natural forms and processees of the places we live, examining scale, the hydrologic cycle, and unsustainable landscapes. Focussing mainly on the way water shapes the land, McLachlan used David Nash’s Wooden Boulder as an example.

David Nash, a British sculptor since the 1970’s, works mainly with wood, sculpting various elements of nature, demonstrating the history of an environment or depicting natural processes, like in his Wooden Boulder. Beginning in 1978, Wooden Boulder, was a 25 year environmental project, where Nash carved a boulder into a fallen oak tree. Nash, who had intended to take the boulder back to his studio, left the boulder in the water to see where it would taken after getting stuck in the river. Throughout the 25 years, the boulder travelled from the Vale of Ffestiniog, through to the river Dwyryd and estruary, down to the Ynys Giftan, where finally it floated out to the Irish Sea, moving with the river as the landscape around changed. Last seen in 2003, as most creeks, marshes, and estuarys have been searched, it is assumed that the boulder is still floating about the Irish Sea.

“It is not lost. It is wherever it is.”    – David Nash

http://some-landscapes.blogspot.com/2006/03/wooden-boulder.html

http://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag01/dec01/nash/nash.shtml