I was on La Palma when I received a delightful job:
Josef Huber – owner of a gardening and landscaping company in Oberpinthart in Lower Bavaria – asked me to work on two hollowed-out sections of a lime tree trunk.
The special thing was the task of creating a sculpture as well as an appropriate colour composition on the hollowed-out parts of the trunks.
What I hadn’t known before was the age of this venerable felled tree: it was estimated to be around 1000 years old. This instilled respect and awe in me from the outset!
The eight weeks of work on the trunks are difficult to describe. Every day I breathed in the smell of the shavings and the dust of the incense-scented felled contemporary witness. Every day I tried reassessing ‘its’ life span, again and again. It included the heyday of Arab culture in Spain – Mozart – Goethe – Napoleon – 2 world wars in the last century alone. All these – I felt – were in the ether world, including in this 1000 year old contemporary testimony!
I tried to change as little as possible of the existing growth forms. A chainsaw was used sparingly, and the chisel and the clapper were mainly used. Most of the sanding work was done by hand. The final application of linseed oil to the sanded surfaces was a wonderful reward.
The exciting challenge of creating a colour composition now followed:
I set about priming the hollowed-out interior of the trunks. I then used leather paper, which I found suitable for the composition I had in mind. I covered some parts of the inner surface with it. The final step in the process was the colour composition.
This resulted in 2 sculptures.
I have Josef Huber, who was always bursting with energy and enthusiasm, to thank for this venture. He promoted art in every way with the same dedication and passion with which he ran his landscaping business! His company premises were also a sculpture park. Seminars and exhibitions were regularly held on site. With his early death, the neighbourhood has lost an energetic promoter of art and culture.