Ritual Totems: A Sculptural Journey

Living in the beauty and solitude of the redwoods for the past 35 years has profoundly shaped my inner perceptions, my view of the world around me, my approach to the artistic process. As a sculptor who initially envisioned sculpture within an art gallery or museum setting, my years spent living and working outside in nature gradually turned my focus and energy to outdoor monumental forms that resonated with the natural setting I inhabited.

Intuitively I was inspired to carve out an environment (Ritual Totems) blending within the existing natural redwood environment My hope was that the totems would evolve as a natural outgrowth of the existing landscape expression of the primal heartbeat of nature rather than as a statement of humanity's prefabricated ego.

For this journey I possessed no inherited cultural background, had no established traditions to follow. I had no shamans or 'curanderos' to initiate me into the secrets of their ancestral heritage, no schooling in their artistic techniques nor access to the wisdom that springs from a life nurtured as a link in a mystical chain.

Although I only began actual work on the Ritual Totems in 1999, this vision had been germinating in my mind for the past 25 years. Presently, on the two acres inhabited by my wife and myself, there are a total of seven different totem groups comprising over 30 different sculptures. Each totem is hand carved with mallet and chisel, decorated with clay masks and other clay accoutrements along with rusted nails.

It is my intention to go on creating these ritual totems for the rest of my creative life, paying homage to the primal dreams and visions that continue to possess me.

-Tom Wolver