Humane Society of Oldham County KY Tree of Life wall sculpture

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Making of "The Tree of Life" wall Sculpture

for the Humane Society of Oldham County Kentucky

Designed and Created by Kentucky Artist Stephen Winter

This is a view of the completed project installed.

Local artist Stephen Winter designed and created the Donor Tree of Life for the Humane Society in hopes that by donating his time and skills more dogs and cats can be rescued. The trunk of the tree is made from sheet metal which was hand cut, hammered and decorated to give it the bark-like appearance. The leaf clusters were cut from plexiglass with each leaf placeholder cut and placed carefully by hand. The dog and cat silhouettes were cut from plywood before being painted. The project took several weeks to complete. The sculpture will be prominently displayed in the Adoption Center Lobby in the new shelter located off Commerce Parkway in Oldham County Kentucky near Louisville.

If you wish to donate to the humane society you may purchase Leaves of Love, larger Acorns of Hope, or Contributor Stones which will be displayed on either side of the dog and cat silhouette. Order yours online today. humanesocietyoldhamcounty.com/building-campaign or call: 502-222-7537 for more information.

The Making of the Donor Tree of Life

The process of creating the “Tree of Life” began when Laura Yates, Vice President of the Humane Society, was looking for an artist to create a wall sculpture that the public could participate in and help support the new Humane Society Building. She contacted Gallery 104, in downtown LaGrange, and met Oldham County Art Association member Stephen Winter, a painter and metal sculptor. Laura had seen commercially made “Donor Trees” online for sale but the prices of these trees were very expensive. Stephen decided he could make a tree of his own design and hand fabricate the components in his studio to save the Humane Society thousands of dollars. Money that can be spent helping unfortunate animals, cats and dogs that find themselves abandoned, sick, unloved, or lost.

The artist documented the process of creating the Donor Tree of Life in photos.

1. The tree was designed on a computer then the image was projected full scale and traced on poster board to make patterns.

2. Here Stephen is cutting out the traced pattern.

3. Jigsaw cutting the trunk out of sheet metal.

4. Using a sandbag and mallet to hammer the tree trunk into a 3-D shape.

5. Bending a flat flange edge with pliers to create a flat edge on the back and add more depth.

6. Preparing to weld a flat wall plate on the back of the trunk to hide hangers.

7. The steel tree trunk is turned over to the front side and polyester auto body filler is used to give the trunk a bark-like appearance.

8. Shown here is the completed tree trunk painted with a flat black, gray, and tan.

9. Some of the leaf cluster patterns laid out on an almost invisible 48” square sheet of near ¼” thick plexiglas. There are a total of 20 plexiglas patterns to be cut out. An additional 18”x24” sheet was used to complete all pieces.

10. Close rough cutting out some of the plexiglass leaf clusters with a jigsaw. They are cut out to make them easier to handle when cutting the intricate final shapes using a scroll saw. There is a plastic covering adhered to the plexiglas on both sides to guard against scratching.

11. A pile of roughed out plexiglas panels ready to be close cut to the final shape.

12. Scroll saw cutting the final detailed shapes out of the ¼” plexiglass panels.

13. Traced the shapes of the cat and dog on a white painted piece of plywood.

14. Scroll saw cutting the cat shape out of plywood.

15. Made from sheet metal, hidden mounting brackets that will raise the cat and dog silhouettes off the wall a ½” to help achieve a 3-D effect.

16. Metal brackets were attached using countersunk holes.

17. Countersunk holes filled with auto body filler and sanded smooth.

18. Countersinking the plexiglas mounting holes to hide the screws behind the donor leaves. None of the wall hangers or mounting hardware of this wall sculpture will show from the front.

19. The way to smooth and clear a saw cut edge on plexiglass and give it a polished look is to run a map/pro gas torch flame along the edge at just the right speed. It has the look of clear glass when correctly done.

20. For the wall art to have a 3-D look all of the parts are held out from the wall by spacers. Using 3 mounting screws per plexiglass panel 60 spacers are needed. I used polyethylene tubing to create the spacers.

21. To expedite the manufacture of these spacers I made a fixture to facilitate consistent size and straight cutting. It’s simply 3-⅜” nuts welded to a piece of scrap channel steel. The tubing is pushed through to the end of the first nut. Then a single edge razor blade is pushed between the second and third nut to keep the cut straight.

22. The process of cutting 260 placeholder leaves out of bronze, silver and gold vinyl. I printed the correct shape, arranged 15 to a sheet on the back, then cut them out by hand. These will be replaced with engraved permanent metallic leaves.

With all the components finished and polished the piece is ready to mount on the wall.

Large Public Sculpturer- Hope Springs Eternal