'Kind Of Magical': Arvada Center's Wood.Works Explores Artists' Fascination With Wood
ARVADA, Colo. (CBS4) - The galleries at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities are open, and offering several ways to explore the inspiration of wood in art.
"We, as humans, have already an understanding and a comfortability around wood," said Collin Parson, Director of Galleries and Curator at the Arvada Center.
Wood.Works features 24 artists, most of whom are Colorado-based. Their work shows wood in nearly every iteration you can think of: cut, carved, glued, layered, painted, stained and burned.
"I like the resourcefulness of wood. When I was growing up as a kid, I remember, 'Oh, you don't get paper bags.' because 'Oh, you want to save the trees.' But now we look at wood as a sustainable resource," Parson explained.
One artist carved the heads of his family members and attached them to a table top, a reminiscence of family dinners. Another artist made collages out of found-wood items. There is a video presentation about wood, and some full-scale sculptures.
"I just hope it expands their thinking of what is art, what art can be, and what can be made from wood as an artistic medium," Parson said.
Artist Patrick Marold used the medium in it's purest form. He set up a circle of life-sized, trees in the atrium of one gallery.
"The origin of all these pieces is a tree," Marold told CBS4.
Marold wants visitors to see the forest created by the trees.
"I hope they just feel something entering it, walking around it...a sense of atmosphere," he explained.
He collected the trees in the forest near home in the Colorado foothills. He said that he likes to work with wood, because it's a living material that continues to respond when it's worked with.
LINK: Register for Free for Wood.Works
Wood.Works runs through April 25, 2021 at the Arvada Center. Visitors must register for free before going. Mask and temperature checks are required.