Burden Tree
Doug Baulos • Japanese rice paper, ink, found objects and stoneware
Artist’s statement: “For my interpretation of the book To Kill a Mockingbird, I was most interested in ideas of spiritual isolation, racial dichotomies and storytelling. I was also drawn to several iconic images including birds, trees and the printed book (reading). I used actual copies of the book in the sculpture, hoping to personify intangible experiences and feelings and make them tangible for the viewer. It was my hope that the sculpture reads as a tree or figure—(Boo Radley.) The books become the body of the tree or torso of the figure, the handmade red string becomes the blood vessel of violence spilling and encircling. Books, because of their sequential ordering, have always been of particular interest to me. The book as an object allows the viewer to be guided through a thought process, as well as evoking time and journey/text and image in an intimate fashion. The act of adding together an image is a kind of meditative exercise for me having as much to do with duration as physical texture. I see it as a function of time, like breathing. While drawing and layering found materials, seemingly dissimilar elements begin to trigger associations with other images and ideas. My hope is that the viewer connects these images by drawing on their own personal reflection of race and Southern culture.”