The bigger the ceramic sculpture, the further back you have to get to see if you’re making it the right shape!
I’m currently sculpting this large World Tree inspired by my husband’s dream last month and by the amazing coincidence of accidentally listening to the book Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman the week after his dream.
My Husband’s World Tree Dream
I came home to see Raul sitting down to start drawing a dream he’d had the last three nights. The dream was him coming out of a cave from “normal space” to a dream landscape. There was a huuuge tree with a ladder and people on the branches bathed in a golden glow…the tree was called “El Arbol al Cielo,” and Raul was walking people across the landscape and over a bridge to another door. He knew the way and was guiding one person at a time, one per night. He said he thought he was helping people who had died pass over to the underworld. (As I would learn later, they were literally “crossing the rainbow bridge,” called the Bifrost in Norse mythology.) But if the tree lights went out bad spirits would come out of a cave and try to get them. The third night he dreamed it the bad spirits did come out and he got the people to safety and fought the spirits and won… and when he went through the door to safety in the real world, it was so bizarrely normal.
And my husband is bizarrely normal and doesn’t believe in weird, metaphysical stuff. Unless, like this dream, it seems obviously, impossibly, unexplainably — real.
The World Tree In Norse Mythology
The next week, I started listening to Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman. It’s a true-to-the-myths account of Norse Mythology told using Neil Gaiman’s signature storytelling magic. And what surprised the crap out of me was that Raul’s dream was right there!
The gap between worlds, the bridge only Gods can walk on to ferry souls to the underworld, the World Tree, the trolls that chase. His dream is Norse mythology. And I looked it up, the myth of the world tree and the gap between worlds is also Mayan/Aztec/Olmec etc. It’s also Croatian. It’s a worldwide myth!
It quickly became evident that I needed to start sculpting a tree.
So I am. I’m building this tree in sections like those great carved stone columns in ancient temples. It’s about halfway done and a little bigger than three feet tall at this point. I have ideas of creating an installation with this tree in the middle and my vessel-like “Worlds Within Worlds” sculptures clustered around it.
In Norse Mythology there are nine worlds.
They’re connected by the roots and branches of the world tree and a rainbow bridge Gods can walk on to move between worlds, the bridge is known as the Bifrost. One of the worlds is this mortal world where we live. One is Asgard where Odin, Thor and Loki live. One is the land of The Frost Giants, etc.
But, I work best when I follow my intuition and not my ideas.
So I started sculpting a tree trunk and I’m not sure what the top will look like. I’m not sure how I’ll arrange the worlds or what they will look like. I am sure there’ll be nine of them. And I’m sure this piece will be amazing. I’m already amazed by it.
And I have a favor to ask of you.
You get to enjoy seeing my work for free here and on social media. You are inspired by the ideas within my art and it brings a sense of wonder to your otherwise normal, workaday world. I am glad! The reason I make this art is to inspire people with hope and wonder and beauty!! Now that I’ve done that, can you do something for me?
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