“Every piece I make is an experiment, searching out endless possibilities.”

This quote from sculptor Spencer Byles essentially epitomizes the Nature-Based  Art program’s goals and purposes.  We recently came across Byles from an email regarding his website/blog: http://frenchforestsculptures.blogspot.com/.  If you take a chance wander around the Botanical Gardens, you will see the majesty, intricacies, and uniqueness of every piece. Each of the sculptors, just like Byles, have thoughts and plans in their heads and sketches on paper, but they have no clear picture of what the sculpture will definitively look like–not only after evolution and decay, but after initial building as well.

Nature-Based Art offers a new type of canvas, so to speak. Sculptors take ideas from their imaginations and sketches, and are able to turn them into something tangible.  The world is the sculptors’ paintbrush, chalk, pencil–meaning that various materials, whether man-made or natural, created or discarded, are significant to the creation of these sculptures…just like Byles discusses in his personal statement. However, the one fact that consistently intrigues me is that these programs are installed all over the world.  From the forests of France (Byles’ location) to our Botanical Gardens here in Clemson, this unique artform thrives.

Take a peak at Spencer Byles’ blog and photographs, you will not be disappointed! The really neat thing about his blog? You can see all of the steps that go into creating these sculptures. Some of them, like his most recent one, remind me of the original and/or current state of some of our own sculptures. For example, his most recent reminds me of  Chris Drury’s, Time Capsule (2002), current state of evolution. If you have the opportunity, check out the sculptures in the Botanical Gardens and see how they compare to others’ in varying regions…it’s certainly a diverse, but similar range!