Touchwood

31 Mar-3 Apr 2022

Credit: Daniele Mah

Overview

“I do not project my ideas but let the wood reveal its inner beauty to me as I carve” - Margaret Higginson

Canadian born Deptford sculptor Margaret Higginson has spent the last forty years working her way through natures materials. Starting in clay she moved on to metal and then stone. Her latest foray is into a material that shows nature’s glory at its most delicate – wood. 
Working with the grain of the wood she is working with Margaret reveals the life of the tree from which the wood came.

Burl wood, made up of a tree’s bud tissue that has not sprouted, shows environmental stress.
 Past combat is revealed. The tree has formed coils of cells to protect itself and survive.
 At other times trees have succumbed to the outside stressed by absorbing them. Margaret works around rope, metal and other foreign objects that have become so entangled with the wood as to become one being. 
Elm grows in shapes that reveal figures with its twists and curves. 
The result is intense, geometric sculpture that highlights the inner beauty of trees.