The Herald Citizen
Cookeville, TN

Sunday, January 20, 2002

Cookeville artist Brad Sells is gaining acclaim for his wood sculptures in which he works to bring out the ‘spirit of one of the Earth’s greatest living organisms.’ He’ll be opening a new gallery here soon, and creating a sculpture for Capshaw Elementary School. By Tracey LeFevre

“Being an artist is not an easy job – it’s challenging but satisfying. I can’t see myself doing anything else.”

That’s how Cookeville native Brad Sells describes his seven-year career as a wood sculptor.

And with some of his freeform pieces displayed in such prominent locations as the Smithsonian Institution’s Renwick Gallery and the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville, his work remains in high demand.

Despite his busy schedule, however, Sells said he plans within the next two months to open his own Silver Maple Gallery here in Cookeville.

Located above his work studio at the corner of Broad St. and Ferguson Ave., the gallery’s grand opening is set for 2 to 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 2.

It will feature – in addition to Sells’s own wood sculptures – works of glass, photography, painting and possibly jewelry and pottery by other regional and national artists.

And later on in the summer, Sells said he expects to start possibly his largest project yet – a proposed sculpture carved from the wood of trees around Capshaw Elementary where he was once a student himself.

“There are some rather large, old trees in the lot there beside the school that have to come down in order to make way for the school’s renovation project,” he said.

Instead of simply letting those trees be destroyed, though, the Putnam School Board has endorsed Sells’s proposal to use them to sculpt an architectural piece for Capshaw’s remodeled main entrance.

“If that plan is ultimately approved, it will be sometime this summer before I can actually begin working on it,” he said.

And what sort of sculpture does Sells hope to create when the school board gives him the okay to start carving?
“I make one piece that’s a wooden bowl with what looks to be imprints of hands carved into it. It gives you the impression when you look at it that the wood is sort of a fluid, flowing material,” Sells said.

“And I hope to recreate that piece on a larger scale for the school project – to make the wood look as if the imprints of children’s hands have touched it all over,” he said.

But Sells said he wasn’t always sure that he wanted to work as an artist.

He majored in psychology at Tennessee Tech and had minors in art, biology and geology.

“My interest in those sciences and in the natural world has definitely influenced the forms of my art,” he said.

As a student at the Appalachian Center for Crafts, though, he focused on ceramics.

“That sort of forced me into throwing clay on a potter’s wheel – and I always wanted to somehow capture the way a vessel looks just before it falls apart, when its sides begin to undulate and scallop,” he said.

The process he now applies to wood carving helps him capture those seemingly fluid characteristics, but many viewers incorrectly assume that Sells accomplishes this by steam bending and chemical manipulation of the material.

“But it’s not – I begin with a green chunk of wood and carve it into a flowing, organic form,” he said.

The vessel is then refined by the arduous use of grinders to create a consistent wall thickness, and it’s sanded and completed with a hand rubbed poly-oil finish.

“I diligently sought to refine the process of vessel carving when I began my career as an artist, and the result was this unique procedure, which I pioneered by relying heavily on personally modified tools, advice of colleagues and keen determination,” he said.

The theme of Sells’s work revolves around life, the processes of nature and the passage of time.

“In my work, I attempt to show the surviving spirit of one of Earth’s greatest living organisms, as well as the flow of life – a constant current of change,” he said.

And that’s a part of the reason he eventually chose to work with wood.

“I think trees are kind of like people because they’re both growing in several different directions at the same time, flexible enough to adapt. And being well grounded doesn’t prevent either of them from reaching for the sun,” he said.

Sells has two studio assistants, Shawn Deal and Matt Hargrove, who help him create and process his work.

“I don’t know that I could have survived and accomplished as much as I have without the help they’ve given me,” he said.

Creating a mid-sized piece such as the hand-imprinted bowl takes Sells and his assistants between 30 and 40 hours.

“The smaller and more intricate pieces can actually be more time consuming, though, because it’s so easy to get wrapped up in the details,” he said.

For more information about Brad Sells’s artwork or about Silver Maple Gallery, call (931) 372-8818.