Well this has all happened quickly... but an altar has to get built, and soon. I had sketched a few ideas before my trip to Herschel, but without seeing what the wood really looked like it's difficult to do much in the way of design. These aren't standard dimensioned boards from the lumber yard, after all.
Some of the altar's design criteria are:
-leaving the wood as original and rough as possible
-needs to be transported - so it must disassemble easily
-leave existing nails in (for the obvious crucifix metaphor)
-BIG; 12 feet long and about 4 feet wide
(it needs to fill a worship space in TCU Place in downtown Saskatoon, SK)
The idea being that this is working wood, wood which has born the thrust and weight of countless millions of bushels of grain over three quarters of a century. This isn't the pampered, polished and waxed wood of your coffee table. It's wood that has seen some action. Wood that is reflective of the Saskatchewan farmer's pioneering and hard-working spirit. And we want to make the altar meaningful by letting the wood tell it's own story. Not by transforming it into a piece of fine furniture that bears no resemblance to it's former life.
So how to go about getting inspiration for this? What else but to start by looking at elevators. I had stopped at a few elevators on my drive back home but couldn't get into any of them. We live in the Canadian Shield in Air Ronge, Saskatchewan so the closest elevator is a good drive away. I'd have to rely on photos and memories.
Some of the now gone elevators as they stood in Herschel, Saskatchewan.
There are still some standing but I couldn't count very many on my drive home. Tessier, SK.
No comments:
Post a Comment