SALON 29: THE LAST OF THE WOOD NYMPHS

Welcome back to our Creativity Salon...it's been a long time away but the call for creative minds to share is a magnet that does pull us back, even across oceans.

To remind you how this works...if you have anything you would like to ask our guest artist, just click on the comments indicator at the bottom of the page and it will take you there. Our artist is located in Central Scotland so it may be several hours or a day or two before he receives your question or comment and is able to respond. We will keep the salon up and running through the end of November. We love to get a real dialogue going and since many of our regulars are in America, this will be an interesting opportunity to do some cross-pond conversing. If you have any problems sorting out how to leave a comment just email me and I'll send you the instructions or post your comment for you. (And please be very patient with me...it's been a while since I fiddled with this blog system so my memory on how to arrange the photos interspersed with text is very vague...so they are clustered at the bottom of the page. Please go take a look!)

So let us begin!
I've been ready to start again and some of you started contacting me asking when we would...but the thing that really inspired me to start this up again was meeting George Wilson...or let's go back a bit...finding Delta Art Studios in Larbert, Scotland, meeting the director/artist Craig McKechnie, getting involved in some collaborative events...then one day while visiting the giant warehouse of never ending hidden corridors and mysterious closed doors (with art and artists hiding behind every one!)...a wee girl who was with me that day came and tugged my sleeve and said I should go look behind one particular door that just so happened to be open that day only.

I am so grateful that she told me to check it out...I walked into a small very green room with plants and beautiful paintings of trees on all the walls and in the center was this lifesize reclining creature carved of wood. He/she had dragon fly epilettes and cicada rings and a breastplate of intricately carved leaves...powerful and stunning work. I felt I had crawled through the proverbial secret door and come into a very magical place indeed. So of course so I had to go find out who had created this creature called "The Last of the Wood Nymphs"...and who had penned these words on the wall:

“...She speaks to you symbolically, with a hundred different voices, from a hundred different species...She could be the last of her kind. The last of the wood nymphs. Whom, like Shelley’s ethereal beings, love, but live no more.” ~ George Wilson, The Wood Beyond the World

What I Found Out:
George Wilson didn’t really plan to create a Wood Nymph, he didn’t know why he had to start carving its suit of leaves, but it took over his life for a year...or she took over...or is it he? The Wood Nymph is life size and decidedly androgenous, which seems appropriate, and is in keeping with the mythical tradition of wood nymphs, according to George.

George has a deep respect for tradition. He works with only arts and crafts type hand tools (many of his tools are 100 years old) and although his work is his own unique design and statement, he is influenced by the artistry of the Art Deco and Nouveau periods. He speaks with great passion about the demise of the tradesman and tradition of craftsmanship in Scotland. Intentionally, there is only one electric tool in his workshop - a saw.

Every leaf of the Wood Nymph is individually hand carved and fitted to the torso. You can see about 60 kinds of wood in this creature, but George assures you that actually 100 different kinds of wood went into its creation ~ the rest of which the viewer cannot see (constructing the body, under the breastplate) but the artist knows they are there, and there for a reason. “I used only recycled woods, especially woods at risk due to deforestation. The Wood Nymph is my statement about what we are doing to our rainforests,” he explains. “I want people to think about these woods, where they come from and the horrific environmental vandalism happening in those places. Some of the wood in this Nymph is now commercially extinct.”

As there is some outrage behind his reasons for creating the Wood Nymph, it makes sense that the face should have such a quality of strength. It also has a multiracial quality, intentionally, depicting that it comes from a blend of many cultures. “I didn’t want it to be a frail butterfly nymph,” says George. “I wanted it to look like it could look after itself.”


There is Scottish and international history in the piece ~ wood from Carriden House in Bo’ness; Victorian and Georgian woods from recycled furniture and window sills; commercial timber; various species of mahogany, teak, olive and woods from South America, USA, South East Asia, Africa, Canada. Some of the wood dates back to the 16th century. There are slivers from the Winchester Cathedral foundation, bits of semi petrified wood from bog oak, thousands of years old.

The Wood Nymph is looking for a home. A place where people can see this stunning and thought-provoking piece. George has had offers from various galleries and venues asking to host temporary exhibitions of the Wood Nymph and he is considering them, but meanwhile seeks a long term solution The thing is, you see, he has this vision for another carving and his studio is small and, well, frankly...the Wood Nymph is taking up all the space!

This time it’s sea nymphs, two figures intertwined with an oceanic wave, inspired by a 1950s comic book cover illustration by Virgil Findley (from the Famous Fantastic Mysteries series).


“This piece will have a lot of movement, in wood, and will be partly to push me forward as an artist right to the boundaries of what I can do. When I use these tools that were used 100 years ago and wood from hundreds of years back - these things effect me. These woods will be reborn, I’m the one that will be left in time, these things will go forward in time. My intention is to make things that make me feel good and which are also beautiful for other people, to make them feel good. That’s enough for me.“

Article by Michelle Miller Allen/McCallum (c) 2009
[Adapted from version which first appeared in NEW LEAF NEWS Autumn 09 at http://www.cgiscotland.org/]

ABOUT THE ARTIST: George Wilson has had a working studio at Delta Art Studios in the Lochland Estate, Larbert SCOTLAND for six years and says he is the most dust-creating artist in the building. Wilson is a woodworker who creates custom furniture, conservatories and does remodeling and repair of Victorian buildings in Edinburgh, Glasgow and other parts of Scotland. The eclectic nature of the art and artists one can find at Delta encourages creativity and freedom to explore. (For information contact Craig McKechnie: www.deltastudios.net) Many who have seen the wood nymph feel it belongs in a museum setting. The Wood Nymph is for sale, for “the right home”. Contact Delta Studios for all queries. Or contact Michelle to pass you along: spiritbear1@btinternet.com

REMEMBER...DO WHAT YOU LOVE AND LOVE WHAT YOU DO!

Green Phoenix Productions