Evaline and An Unfinished Love Story

Recently I finished a new piece, "Evaline" from S. Evaline st in the Garfield/ Friendship area of Pittsburgh near Penn Ave. This beautiful little table started out heading for the local dump when I happened upon her on my way back from Bartlett Fasteners on Penn Ave. You can view this moving little table full of life and the character of our city at the Fifteen minutes gallery in the Pittsburgh Tech Council lobby.

My other recent project "An unfinished Love Story" a heart shaped section of Goldstrom cherry from the Beechview section of the city, which I carved. The section split while I was working on it and it seemed only appropriate to leave it thus for the time being. This piece was given in an incomplete state...
My sincerest hope and dream is to have the opportunity to complete this piece sometime in the future... and the beautiful love story that accompanies this piece as well. We will have to wait and see for that one...

I am wrapping up work on a new mantle shown previously in the "Unearthed" show. I am pretty excited about how well this piece is responding to being worked. The grain being revealed is beautiful!
I will be showing this in The Clay Place Gallery starting next week... I better Hurry Up!!!! The show will be titled "Cemetery Gates" and we will have work from a number of local artists utilizing material from Allegheny Cemetery showing in the exhibit.
More on this upcoming show in the next couple days... so stay tuned!!

Urban Forest Recycling

Wilkinsburg trees
Pilot project

This past Wednesday the 25th of February we worked in conjunction with Pittsburgh Lumberjack Tree Service, Inc. and Wilkinsburg borough to recover 4 beautiful London Plane trees along S. Braddock Ave.
Joe Suto from Lumberjack was great to work with and facilitated us getting the logs back to a lot where we can work to reclaim different sections for a variety of projects.
Kelly Frey from WTAE channel four news stopped by with Cathy working the camera to check out the endeavor and capture some footage of Lumberjacks' arborists bringing these beautiful specimens to the ground. Joan King from Wilkinsburg's shade tree commission also stopped to check on progress. Joan is responsible for contacting us originally to discuss the possibilities for working with the borough. Thank you Joan for all your hard work and dedication!!

Now the hard work begins as Urban Tree Forge's challenge is to find homes and opportunities to utilize these bastions of our urban Forest.
We already have a client for whom we can make a base for their dining table from a section, and we have a request for a sideboard cabinet for some as well. These projects will be a great start for these trees, but we need more. Please contact us here at the Urban Tree Forge if you are interested in having something made for you home or office, or if you are interested in a section you would like to work with yourself. These have some tremendous character and would be great for carving or turning as well.