In ‘Trees,’ sculptor sews out on a limb

For Barbara Andrus a trip to the woods yields nearly everything she needs to make art. The artist, who divides her time between Swans Island and Manhattan, will fell a tree, saw it up and remove the bark with a drawknife. As she works, she traces the tree’s growth through its trunk and branches.

Andrus then takes the tree parts and works with them in the space where her piece is to be shown. Using a needle and fabric, she’ll literally stitch together tree limbs “with cloth sewn over and around the branches.” Back in her own studio, she bends leftover twigs into circles and weaves them into a wall hanging.

“My sculpture evolved into installations that are embodiments of places that are elsewhere, where you could imagine yourself being,” explained Andrus whose latest installation, “Sewing Trees: Three Chambers, Three Layers,” is on view through Feb. 19 in the Blum Gallery at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor. “These places are not inhabitable physically, but they invite the viewer inside in their imagination.”

“The physicality of the work, being outside, handling the trees, experiencing the wood and the history of the tree as it is revealed in knots and arrested branches is vital to me,” she continued. “I might saw through a limb and discover in the cross-section a branch that never grew outside the tree.”

For Andrus, trees evoke drawings.

“The patterns of the limbs,” she said. “The meeting of tree and ground, the transitions in the tree from trunk to limb to branch to twig.”

As she works on an installation, the floor becomes littered with twig ends.

“They are so enticing. Their delicacy and flexibility appealed to me,” she related. “I started playing with them and investigating their possibilities. Many kinds of twigs are so bendable that you can wind them around themselves and make a circle that holds them together. This became a meditation. I collected the twigs and in the evenings I wound them into circles. I knew I wanted to make a suspended screen with them.”

In the COA installation, a fabric disk incorporates curly beech prunings while another is made with weeping beech.

Andrus describes another section of the installation as “an autobiography of sewing.” She sewed tree and leaf forms onto fabric layers resulting in “an idiosyncratic interpretation of architectural and domestic structures at extremes of scale – small and monumental.”

Donna Gold, public affairs director at COA, says Andrus’ piece transforms the Blum Gallery.

“There is a maze inside created from long sticks of wood,” she described. “One wall is covered with circles of sticks, the other in a patchwork of rich textiles.”

To learn more about the exhibit, call the Blum Gallery at 288-5015.

Snippets

. Those who work with the blind may be interested to know that the Lion Brand Web site now offers 1,500 knit and crochet patterns that are compatible with “text-to-speech” Web browsers and devices that produce Braille from Web pages. Patterns also are given in large-type print for the visually impaired. Visit www.lionbrand.com to learn more.

Another Web resource for blind knitters is http://andyshell.com/shell/knit1.htm.

. Here’s a granite stitch for knitters to try. It is worked on a multiple of 2 stitches – 8, 10, 12, etc.

Row 1: Knit.

Row 2: Knit 2 together across the row.

Row 3: Knit into the front and back of each stitch.

Row 4: Purl.

Ardeana Hamlin may be reached at 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.