stephen Spaeth

A gestural expression of times struggle. Each sculptural frame encompasses a physical struggle against time and the material.

These ‘Frame Breakers’ are crafted with air dried Walnut for the outer and inner bits giving it a dark rich look and a bright Cypress inlay with tail to create the gestural bends.

Each frame starts the same way, 4 sides cut to length and glued together. The frames are assembled and the inlay tail is placed inside a steam box. Surrounding it with steam the cypress becomes pliable. When it reaches temperature it’s pulled from the box and then the clock starts. Roughly 30 seconds to a minute the steamed wood will be pliable. While the clock is ticking the frame is braced and the cypress tail is bent and twisted. In this short period of time or long depending on how it’s measured, instinct and feeling take over, slipping into a TEE (Time Expansion Experience) where time takes on a different pace. A dance of sorts unfolds and the moment slows becoming a give and take with the material as the ‘clock’ ticks away.

Questions race through the mind. Will it curve this way, will it hold that bend, can it be pushed farther, will it break or will it take on a new shape it’s never known before? Within seconds the questions and answers exist simultaneously before collapsing upon themselves into the known as the wood takes on its new shape. The cypress moves and bends for a gesture of the moment, the twists and turns the wood takes expresses the feeling and struggle with the limited time it is pliable.

The process always starts in a semi-state of uncertainty. The end shape won’t be known until the steam process is started and it is bent, a catalyst ignites a moment and the wood moves into a state of pliability, a resonating frequency. The wood starts as a thin strip but in the end can be twisted and bent into a gestural expressing unique to each.

Much like drawing the figure on paper, the spirit of the wood comes alive with each swoosh, twist and twirl through space and time.

No matter what we do, we will always struggle with time but not necessarily our perception of it.

Spirited Wood on display during 2025’s Fall Brewery Art walk