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Artist Edgar Smith describes process behind "Flat Cottonwood" work
Summary
Artist Edgar Smith told a Missoula meeting about creating "Flat Cottonwood," a framed sculptural work assembled from sun-dried cottonwood pieces painted with white house paint; he described collecting, processing and arranging the wood and his intent to make the pieces read as a flattened tree.
Artist Edgar Smith described the origins and process for a sculptural work titled "Flat Cottonwood" during a Missoula meeting. He said he collected downed cottonwood pieces from wetland areas, dried and processed them, and arranged them on a surface to create a flattened, framed composition.
Smith said the work grew out of walking wetland areas and collecting wood: "My name is Edgar Smith, and I am going to talk about this piece right here, which is entitled flat cottonwood. It's a piece that kind of, came from from just walking through wetland areas and finding all of this these down cottonwoods where where the bark was sloughed off the tree." The artist explained he amassed a large number of pieces, dried them in the sun and arranged them on a backing to make them appear "more or less, natural."
The piece combines sculptural assembly with painting. "I think painting works. It's painted. It's painted with white house paint," Smith said, noting that some of the underlying bark color remained visible in places and gave the work a warmer, bone-like appearance. He described the process as similar to fitting irregular stones into a wall or walkway and said some pieces did not blend well until he refined the arrangement.
Smith said he chose to flatten and formalize the assembled wood so the result reads as a single object: "I like the idea too of of of flattening a tree, repositioning all the pieces so that it becomes like a framed thing and, formalized, I suppose." He also described a recent shift in his practice from narrative painting toward sculptural approaches, but said he still calls some pieces paintings.
On material longevity and local context, Smith said he did not know the trees' lifespans: "I don't know what their their lifespan is, but they seem to grow very, you know, really fast and, you know, get quite big." He said the work references places he visits and scenes that are not the "traditionally celebrated" landscapes such as mountains.
Asked at the end of his remarks what he does, Smith concluded informally: "What do I do? My name is Edgar Smith, and I I do stuff with things."
