For more than thirty years, Dale Randles has been creating objects carved from the limbs of trees found near his home, first in New Mexico, later in North Idaho, and finally in Northwest Washington state, where he lives today on a wooded island in Puget Sound. From the beginning, his work has been sculptural in nature yet functional, with the shape of the parent branch determining both the form and the function of the finished object. He has spent thousands of hours gathering branches from trees otherwise destined for the woodstove or the chipper and stored them away for seasoning. Much of the wood he uses today was harvested ten, twenty years ago or more. Today these branches stand in a large shed, open at both ends, to allow air to circulate between them. Beneath the bark, insects bore, carving the surface of the wood into hills and valleys and tunnels. As the wood artist sculpts, these are revealed, adding character to the final piece and guaranteeing that it will be one of a kind.
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