I find peace, calmness and inspiration when I am out in nature. I grew up in an ever-growing city. With the towering buildings, nature was almost non-existent. What there was, was a mere decoration, overlooked amongst the steel and concrete. For this work, I used a bit of nature in an ancient technique of casting molten silver into bundles of corn straw to create an organic bark texture. I formed copper into domes and lined them with gold leaf to simulate elf cap mushrooms.

Using the corn straw casting technique, I created a cohesive line where every piece is unique. As if you were to pick a piece of bark off the forest floor, I wanted to make each piece feel natural but still have a sense of refinement. I wanted to capture a moment in time and highlight the beauty that nature can bring in something such as a piece of fallen bark. Something that is often overlooked when walking among the trees of the forest, just as the pockets of greenery in an ever-expanding metropolis are quickly forgotten.