A delicate dance of wood
- Christian creates dynamic wood sculptures from Pacific madrone
- His practice works with the natural variation of his material, revealing its capacity for movement
- His pieces are held in the Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection
Christian Burchard’s practice and his finished sculptures challenge the idea of wood as something fixed and inflexible. His approach is built on solid craftsmanship with room for the surprises that come with working with his material of choice. "I call this process he terms 'predictable unpredictability'," confides Christian. Known for its natural warping and cracking, the material introduces an element of chance into the process, which he finds compelling. “If I already know what the final piece will look like, why should I make it?” he says. His installation, Never Again, is made up of around 80 book-shaped wooden objects, each carefully carved to capture the paper-thin, fluttering feel of book pages. Christian’s sculptures feature in national museums and galleries.
Interview
- What brought you to pursue wood sculpting?
- I became a furniture apprentice partly to rebel against my very conservative upbringing. It was also because I wanted to learn a craft that I could take around the world. I spent 18 months travelling the world before I took up the apprenticeship and I had caught the travel bug.
- How important is working with your hands?
- In the first year of my apprenticeship, we were only allowed to use hand tools. I was definitely hooked. To this day, working with my hands is an essential part of my process and a central part of my life, whether I am working in the studio, cooking or making cheese.
- What do you hope to do next?
- I want to explore and risk more. We only learn from failure, not from success. My students never like to hear that! I would also like to work on more large scale sculptures leaning into craftsmanship to add meaning and depth to my work. My piece called Never Again is a blueprint for that future work.
- How does it feel to be in the Smithsonian’s collection?
- It is an honour, of course. It means that the work has somehow been vetted and is now available to be seen by the larger public.
Christian Burchard is a master artisan: he began his career in 1975 and he started teaching in 1995
Where
Christian Burchard
