Showing posts with label dead. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dead. Show all posts

Carving Dead Trees Into Public Art

Trees have long life spans, but eventually they too die of old age or succumb to diseases or get damaged in thunderstorms and hurricanes. When trees in urban spaces die and show signs of toppling over or breaking off, the city might decide to remove them for the safety of those around. The remaining stumps then provide a wonderful opportunity for wood carvers to showcase their talent and liven up the neighborhood at the same time.

Here are nine towns that show us that not all pieces of public art has to involve steel, granite and concrete.

Orr Park Tree Carvings


The Orr Park in Montevallo, Alabama, the United States, has over thirty carved trees located along the park’s walking trail along Shoal Creek. The trees were carved by local artist Tim Tingle.

In 1983, a storm had hit Montevallo and caused a lot of damage to the wooded area of Orr Park. The city wanted to remove the damaged cedar trees, but local artist Tim Tingle stepped in and offered to have the dead trees turned into works of art. Tim began carving the trees in 1993 and over the course of several years carved figures, faces, and story book characters on the trunks of over thirty trees. The carved trees are now known as Tinglewood.

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Cuexcomate, A Dead Volcano You Can Climb Into

Located in the neighborhood of La Libertad, in the city of Puebla, Mexico, the sinter cone deposit of Cuexcomate has been mistakenly described as the “smallest volcano in the world” by the local population for centuries. It really is only an extinguished geyser, or perhaps a mud volcano (Cuexcomate is a Nahautl word for “mud pot”) believed to have formed by the bursts of magma and sulfuric water during the 1064 eruption of Popocatépetl, an active volcano and the second highest peak in Mexico. The volcanic eruption had likely activated geothermal spring circulation that burst through the Mesozoic limestone layers and deposited calcite and silicate compounds creating an enormous heap 43 feet tall and 75 feet across that looks very much like the cone of a small volcano.

The sinter cone is hollow and there is a 23-feet-wide opening at the top, through which a spiraling metal staircase was installed allowing tourists to descend into the excavated interior of the structure.

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Photo credit: sipse.com