Oak Bay's Bruce Edmundson amassed a peculiar collection while working across B.C. in the forestry sector.
Back in the 1990s, while employed as a timber development technician in Clearwater, Bruce learned about carving burls. Decades later, those burls have reemerged to become the focus of his creative spirit and a vehicle for some truly remarkable local artwork.
These near-spherical growths grow on the trunks of big leaf maples across the tree's range. They are salvaged from dead and down, or trees that have been harvested for timber and are highly sought after by woodworkers.
“Woodturners love maple burls,” Bruce says. “They are also used in furniture and shelving, in high demand due to the wood's intrinsic beauty thanks to the concentration of grain.
“It begins in a womb-like shape and is cut by chainsaw into more manageable pieces depending on its size. It is extremely dense, which makes it very heavy.”
Bruce stored his burgeoning collection away when he traded life in the backcountry for a fulfilling and challenging career in public service.
“I was 45 years old, had no pension, certified trade or profession, no foreseeable long-term future, and my income depended wholly on the contractor’s ability to obtain work,” Bruce says. “Then I started to get sore, I wanted to use my brain as opposed to my back, which was slowly but surely deteriorating, largely due to the tree planting.”
Only after retirement in 2014 did Bruce get around to digging out the burls he'd been saving. Bruce began to work with the wood in earnest and discovered how the burls' density and grain were suitable for carving.
Within a year of starting to carve again, Bruce entered three pieces into the Sidney Art Show. All of them sold. The confidence boost was great, he says. He moved his workspace out of his garage and built a dedicated workshop in his backyard. He placed advertisements in newspapers and online to source more maple burls.
The following year, Bruce entered another three pieces in the Sidney show. None of them sold. Then he was turned down by the Sooke Art Show.
“So much for my confidence,” he says.
A friend then mentioned Bruce's work to the late Heather Wheeler, former owner of The Avenue Gallery. Heather took one look at the eclectic collection of Bruce's sculptures and wanted all of them. Bruce's work has been featured at the gallery on Oak Bay Avenue for nearly a decade.
“It has always been a pleasure to present Bruce’s work, as his pieces continue to captivate and inspire,” says Kathleen Prince, manager of The Avenue Gallery. “His work involves skillfully carving and sanding these burls to highlight their inherent beauty and unique textures. By combining modern tools with traditional techniques, Bruce transforms the burls into stunning forms. Each sculpture embodies a harmonious blend of nature's raw elegance with Bruce’s creative vision and perspective.”
The intricate appearance of his carvings stands in contrast to the brute force and physicality required to bring these creations to life. It's a process that can start well before the material even arrives at his workshop, when Bruce sometimes heads into the woods to drag out his bounty, trucking it back.
“When I'm present when the burl is harvested, I direct the cutting,” he says. “I prefer having a true chainsaw guy doing the cutting as they have big sharp saws, and valuable experience, whereas I have a small saw and it can be dangerous.”
These days Bruce usually works with a local exotic wood dealer to source his raw material. He takes the wood home, where it dries for a couple of years. The quality of the wood and prep time all depends on the state of the tree — whether dead, down, recently harvested, or old and stored in someone’s garage for years — that the burls were harvested from.
“I generally play with it by using timber crayons to mark it up and make some original cuts,” he says. “This is a challenging time because once cut it doesn’t go back together. So, for me, this is both an exhilarating and very anxious time.
“Carving is limiting in that it only comes in a particular shape; it all begins as a womb.”
Plans evolve throughout the process. Big pieces are harder to manage because they are extremely heavy and are often a challenge to secure properly so they can be cut into more manageable pieces.
Bruce uses angle grinders with specialized attachments while carving.
“These discs cut, carve and create a hell of a lot of sawdust using tungsten carbide bits and teeth in various formations. Once I have the final general shape, I sand it using a drill with sanding attachments of various shapes and sizes.
“I am self-taught and the learning has been a rewarding experience.”
Before the final sanding, he explains, he takes the piece to a local do-it-yourself sandblasting outfit. The sandblasting removes bark, immaculately cleans any remaining detritus along with any rotten or soft areas of the wood, and on its own has created some unique and interesting designs. The rot is softer in certain repeated patterns of the grain, and the sandblasting removes it while leaving the hard grain, accentuating the overall patterns and visual interest in the wood.
Another element of the work is making the bases for the pieces. Bruce scrounges scrap marble, granite or quartz from local countertop manufacturers. He then takes these to another local company that cuts steel and stone using extremely high-pressure water jets. They cut the pieces into discs, which Bruce then grinds, sands and polishes into bases.
“This is dirty, dusty and necessary,” he says.
After much experimentation with various products, Bruce completes the process by finishing the carvings with a hard wax oil.
The multi-staged process has evolved as Bruce continues to experiment with different approaches and techniques, yet the overall goal has remained the same ever since he got to work on his first burl.
“I have been sculpting for about seven years, not including the pre-retirement time,” he says. “My purpose is to show off the intrinsic beauty of the material and to create something elegant and graceful that entices the eye. That hasn’t changed.”
Bruce's work can be viewed online at www.theavenuegallery.com or in person at The Avenue Gallery at 2184 Oak Bay Avenue.
This article is from the fall issue of Tweed.
