Petrified Wood

Somewhere, a tree fell in the wrong place, and the wrong place turned out to be right. Silica did the rest.

Petrified wood is tree turned to stone. Mineral-rich water slowly replaced the cells of buried trunks over millions of years, preserving bark, growth rings and knots in quartz shot through with ochre, rust, charcoal and cream. Cut and polished, sections become stools, side tables and pedestals, their tops glassy and their sides left rough as bark.

The weight is considerable, and the effect is sculptural. A stool beside a bath, a pair of slabs flanking a travertine fireplace, a single round under a bronze in a garden room.

Wood, with the permanence of stone. Still a tree, technically.