There is no bending. So the illusion is that no matter how I explain to people that
everything is built up in carved, they can't get it outta their head that it's not bent. But
it's not, it's carved. And that means I've won because that's what I'm trying to do is create
something that is so naturally flowing. They can't stop believing it. My name's Derrick Crossland.
I'm a fine arts sculptor. I sculpt in wood. And the materials I use are Russian Baltic Birch,
which is a laminate that I build the sculptures up and then carve them into these fluid shapes.
Most of the creations are kind of built around foundation of waves in two different waves.
Like the literal wave, like a sound wave is in each part of my pieces of art. There's always
almost a perfect sign wave right in the artwork that's hidden kind of in the back. But
that's part of the flu of the shape is the way that that design is in there already. And then the
other part of the sculpture is more of the abstract like water sort of movement that's going
over the top of that wave. And then when you blend those two together, you get this fluid movement
of the shape. I've been an artist in my bones from when I was just a little kid. I've been
doing artwork and crafty things. And when I got through with my career in
being a general contractor, I decided to build the shapes up. And with all my experience from
what I was, which was a master cabinet builder, I knew which wood I wanted to use, and that was
Russian Baltic Birch, which is a laminate product. So I built the shapes and then carved them.
And what I learned real quick after doing this is the lines showing through.
When you carve through the layers, it gives you
like a really accurate depiction of what you're seeing. And it's the same as topography on a map.
It shows you the the valleys and it shows you the high points. It also, besides that,
our eyes, when we're looking at something that has lines in it like that, our eyes are following the
lines. And when you're following those lines, it almost gives movement to the figure you're
looking at. I lay these drawings out, draw the blue line on the wood, draw the other lines,
cover this piece out, cut it all out, then glue the pieces up. And then eventually all six layers
are glued on top of one another, and you have your shape. You have your rough shape. And that's it.
Extremely rough shape. And then going through the process from the very roughest tools to get
rid of the bulk, and then going down a layer of steps to get rid of the rougher to smoother
areas. And so you're using a carbide teeth tools to start, and then you're using really rough grits
of grinder stuff to get it smoother. Then you get into the sandpapers and you work your way down.
Each of these started out as like a six inch sketch. So I come up with an idea,
like let's take example the shark. The shark's one of my favorite sculptures and creations. Just in a
couple quick lines, I had had this image of what I wanted to do. And it's almost exactly what the
shark looks like today. With just a couple of brief hand movements, and I had this sculpted.
I have a color palette that covers a lot of different
stains. This just natural wood stains. So I use different tones of grays and some earth tones,
but then I have quite a few other techniques to get these blues in there. And I'm using
aniline dyes when I do that. I feel like I've had the freedom to express myself, making these
sculptures, I think is the best thing I've done in my career. I love this art world. Almost every
artist out there supports each other. We're all happy for each other's success.
There's no dog eat dog sort of thing out there. It's all positive. So it's a great place to be.