meet jon mcleod, artist.

jon is a wonderful and true artist. he makes abstract sculptures out of wood stone and bone. abstracts of universal fundamental questions and concepts. in these pictures he's working on a piece of wood from a fallen and beloved community tree in our Coolidge Park. Over 35 artists and craftsmenwomen got a piece of this tree from the City's urban forestry dept. They held a lottery one tuesday morning and gave it all away.

Jon took a 500 pound piece of the slippery elm's trunk.

From it today he is making a piece of sculpture for his friend and fellow artist, brent. Brent was married under that tree and asked jon to make something for his wife. She's getting it this christmas so jon is working fast. the finished art will have a carved stone as a centerpiece.


I'm spending time with Jon and with many of the people who are making something from their piece of that beloved tree, and shooting a documentary about community and art and how to live forever. Hopefully there will also be an exhibit of some of the wood pieces as well.


Jon is also making a baptismal font for a local church. he is giving the bark sheets to another artists who is going to use it as a background surface for something. And he is giving the woodchips fllying off this piece here to his own girlfriend Beth, a potter. She has a way to fire clay by wrapping it in woodchips for some special effect. We'll be following all of that. This tree has many branches in the afterlife.