When is the last time you…

… climbed a tree?

… looked for figures in the clouds?

… had a food fight with your friends?

Can’t remember? I’m sure many of us are in that camp. Responsibilities in our daily lives + the need to just make it to another Friday drains our creative reserves.

The construction of Sweet Dreams provides an opportunity to engage with the art, just as a child might interact with the foreign world around them. It was created as playful piece that harks back to the freeing curiosity of our youth.

So often, art in a gallery setting is reserved and intended to be viewed from suitable distances by affluent patrons, and certainly not to be touched. In this environment, art in galleries mimics much of the adult experience. Cut off from one another, in our own lanes of life and examined by those around us.

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The waffle cone in this design is created from a piece of black walnut with substantial live edge across the rim. Two fungal pigments were applied to the wild hazelnut ice cream scoops — Scytalidium cuboidium (red) & Chlorociboria spp. (blue/green). These pigments came from the Oregon State University Applied Mycology Laboratory which conducts spalting research overseen by Dr. Robinson.

Sweet Dreams can be rearranged + redesigned to the viewer’s preference — the shavings + ice cream spheres spread in any pattern (in or outside the “waffle cone”). Have some fun with this piece! Just don’t try to eat it… not nearly as tasty as the real thing!

*Featured finalist in the American Association of Woodturners’ Turning To The Future competition at the 2021 AWFS Fair*