About Michael Edenhart-Pepe and His Work
Why Make Totems?
Late in the 1980’s a microburst ripped through our farm about 20 miles southwest of Raleigh, NC. A microburst is a localized, but powerful downdraft that moves like a tornado, though turns the opposite way. They are found in strong thunderstorms which frequented our hollow. In this event, the storm ripped off our roof vent cap, tossing it into the trees two and a half stories above the ground and it also severed many of the tulip poplar and pine trees surrounding the house. Interestingly, most of the trees were severed about 8 to 10 feet above the ground. While we heated with wood, the pine and poplar were not good burning wood. So, I was not inclined to cut the standing remains for firewood. As recycling and repurposing were part of our lives on the farm and compelled by my love of woodworking, it was not long before I found a use for the storm-battered trees.
One particular tulip poplar (liriodendron tulipifera) was 30 years old at the time of the storm and after the storm, the remains stood a mere 8 feet high. This tall, straight poplar trunk held a prominent position on the forest edge, close to our house and on a 4-foot terrace, such that it was one of the more noticeable trees along the entrance drive. This tulip poplar became my first totem experiment. I stared at it every time I left the house and each time I drove or walked up the gravel driveway. I approached it on foot and I rode up alongside it on our Missouri Fox-Trotter, Zack. From the various perspectives created by the soaking and drying, the creeping shadows, the multiple elevations and the angle of the sun a face began to emerge. It was then I began the woodwork.
Initially, it was less about carving a form and more about finding ways to remove wood to expose the face I was seeing. I imagined it was more like how an archeologist would carefully and delicately sift through the soil to isolate a treasure. I labored with the tree intermittently for many weeks. Upon finishing carving I crowned it with the 3-foot remnant of my dad's steel airplane propeller onto which I had painted a pattern inspired by the feathers of our guinea hens. It was then that the totem became "THE SENTRY" and felt completed.
"The Earth Does Not Belong to Man. Man Belongs to the Earth." –Chief Seattle
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One of the discoveries I made during this first experiment was that the totem I created from a standing tree was still supporting life, though not as I expected. Suckers grew from the trunk, insects took up residence and birds found a new food source from the resident insects. I also realized that ultimately the totem would return to the forest from which it sprang as its trunk base rotted and root structure decomposed into detritus. At first, I was upset that I had invested so much energy into creating this thing and that it would simply rot away. It occurred to me that it was never mine. I did not own it.
The circularity of the process and my participation in it resonated with another bit of wisdom from Chief Seattle: "All things are connected like the blood that unites us. We did not weave the web of life. We are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves." Beyond the fact that I am using organic materials as a medium, the developmental phases, and transformations, the ephemeral nature of the wood carvings and the return to the context from which the tree sprouted remind me to attend closely to the tracks I make.
My Aesthetic
Some of the most recognizable carvings of human figures are the iconic Easter Island Heads erected by the Rapa Nui people in the south Pacific between 1250 and 1500. These enormous stone statues, properly known as Mo'ai reach 33 feet high and weigh 75 metric tons. Most Polynesian cultures created wood and stone carvings, known as Tikis,(derived from the mythological first man (Tiki) that represented deified ancestors and marked boundaries of sacred or significant sites and date back to at least 1800 BC. These spiritual figures used their menacing expressions to frighten away evil spirits.
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Totems are stunning examples of Native American Indian art as well. Carved from the trunks of massive trees as high as forty feet, this art form was limited to regions in the northern hemisphere where trees were very large and plentiful. Drawings from early European explorers of a Northwest Coast house depict totems in the Queen Charlotte Islands in the 1790s. Large free-standing human welcome figures were found on interior house posts made by the people in Southern British Columbia, Alaska and western Washington. Interestingly, the word TOTEM is derived from the Algonquian word ODOODEM meaning "his kinship group".
Totems did not serve a religious purpose to Native Americans, as many objects did. Instead, they were meant to commemorate special occasions such as marriages, births and anniversaries or to highlight the life of an important tribal member. The figures carved, which were often animals, depicted characters from tribal legends. While they often have symbolic meanings, those meanings are complex and can be difficult to interpret, especially without knowing the history of the pole and the family that owned it. Some totems were integrated into the structure of a house for support and in those instances were used to show tribal lineage. In some cases, they appear to have portrayed a shameful act or a death. Without a written language, the totems served the Native Americans as a vehicle to preserve stories and legends that were passed orally from one generation to the next.
Some Native American traditions suggest that a totem is a sacred object and certain animals on the totem act as guardian spirits to individuals. Through a process of self-discovery, spiritual understanding and attention to one's past and present, a totem spirit helper may reveal itself.
In contrast to the more traditional carvings that most people know as totems or tikis, mine are more abstract representations of animal/human creatures with aspects of realistic elements like teeth, eyes, and mouths. I don't start with a figure or story in mind. I look at the wood as I did with my first totem, sometimes for months, until it begins to speak to me. For example; I might have a log with a large knothole or rotted section. I'll turn it and manipulate the log over a period of time. I'll often look at the log with another person and discuss its features until I see in the knothole an eye or a mouth or teeth or an ear. Sometimes, it begins as a feeling or connection with the wood. That determines my first step.
As I begin to chip away the wood, the creature reveals itself and inspires me in some direction which I can never predict at the outset. I have come to trust in the instinct or spark that inhabits me through this emergent process. For me, the chance encounter with the wood and the unexpected outcome is always a wonderful experience. Another intriguing part of this creative experience, which could be called a non sequitur, surrounds the notion of completion. Unlike my years of work in an industry where project outcomes were specified and quantified, I cannot determine the end until I get there.
The symmetry I've observed in many totems is beautiful and that symmetry is used by the artist to form the creature or object they wish to display. My work gravitates toward asymmetry and I try to achieve a balance against an axis that I only discover as I move through the wood. I do often look for some connection between the wood and the person(s) for whom I am creating. Recently I began work on a wedding totem for a couple, one of whom is an oral surgeon and the other a dentist. The totem was finished with a huge mouth full of white teeth. (See the picture of Smiley to the right.) Another wedding totem was made for a creative couple who color outside of the lines and who engage in the noble service of animal rescue. Pepito emerged as an asymmetric, bohemian creature with large dog-like ears and a blue eye. (See the picture of Pepito to the right.)
Smiley
Pepito
My Tools
Depending on the condition of the wood, I often begin with a chainsaw or hatchet to start shaping. Multiple chisels, dremel, drill, sander, plane, straight draw shave, burner all may be called into action. My children have provided me with some professional grade sculpting wood chisels which do a lot of the finishing work. A handmade maple mallet is an essential tool and balanced perfectly for my hands and arc of the swing I take when chiseling.
Showing Work In Progress
