My friend Rod Wilson is a wood craftsman and artist, a sculptor, a poet and photographer, he invited me to come see an ash tree taken down by the town that he salvaged and took to a mill to be cut into planks that will be cured for several years. I was shocked watching Rod as he ran his hands over the freshly sawn wood and told me the story of each tree, it’s age, it’s wounds, it’s growth – it’s life story.

This was an extraordinarily creative thing for me to see, as I walk and drive by trees all of the time, as we all do, but I know nothing about them and their stories. What wonderful sketches or drawings these tree stories would make, even the different colorations and shadows tell a story, the story of each tree is different, individualistic, just as the story of each human is. Rod has changed the way in which I look at the world and see it. I hope to take photographs of these planks, they seem beautiful and simple art to me, the stories of trees.

I am much enjoying my friendship with Rod, he is a viscerally creative man, I am pestering him to get a blog and put his work up s that everyone can see it, he is reluctant.