Old Oak
Old Oak ~ Bronze
Sculptor ~ Michael McWilliams
I found this piece last July, as I wandered through the Westbury Mall adjacent to the Westbury Hotel, just off Grafton Street in Dublin.
Michael McWilliams was born and educated in Dublin. He has been working as a professional artist for 30 years. He works from his studio on the foothills of the Dublin Mountains.
While his main interest is landscape painting, using a palette of tones and hues inspired by nature, he also works with bronze focusing mainly on the human form.
His works are in various corporate and private collections in Ireland and abroad.
I am always amazed by artistic talent of any kind. I love oak trees and to immortalize the lovely old oak so beautifully makes my heart smile. They are always in fairy tales and at this time of the year with their leaves off they make the Halloween season bewitching! California has some very ancient oak trees as well. There are 60 native species of oak trees in the USA! Oh the happy squirrels! LOL 😀
Mere, I think that oak trees are majestic. I once made a trouser suit – tailored trousers and bolero jacket with in inset panel in the back and a blouse the design came fro oak trees and acorns. Alas it had long gone and I do not have any photos of it.
I hang onto some clothes forever! Favorites! LOL So many things I wish I had hung onto too! I know it was lovely… 🙂
Mere, I used to and still have a few items bought at the turn of the century. That sounds like a long time ago – I mean 2000. Anything older and not fitting or suiting my aging body was given to one of the many charity shops in our town.
What a wonderful way of preserving the outdoors and bringing it into this slick environment. I love the form of trees: it is a work of art in its own right, isn’t it?
Kate, anytime I see a great oak tree I am always reminded of Joyce Kilmer’s poem:
Trees
I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Oh! I memorized this poem years ago in grammar school! 😀 Aways have been a romantic…
Perfect for Halloween ~ a dismembered hand ready for streamers and spider webs. 😉
I leave that to Elly, she has become famous for her Halloween Parties.
I love it when you post photos of sculpture of any kind. This artist sounds interesting. Wonder what his paintings look like.
Thank you gigi, I had forgotten to add a link to his website. I have amended that and you can click on his name above to see his work.
Very interesting piece, it looks so like something that was alive and walking at one time, and then fossilized. Very powerful.
Celia, it caught my eye immediately, because it looked so realistic.
Love your photos os sculpture.
I still have a few in my stock of photos, hopefully enough until I can go exploring once more.
Reminded for some reason of the bogmen who were preserved in dead oak.
XO
WWW
Nin – the old man of the bog! Is that who you are talking about? Sculpture by Kevin Doyle?
www, interesting. I suppose it is a little like looking into the flickering flames of an open fire, we all see our own pictures.
You have a beautiful soul. 🙂