Mountains
2013
Mountains are made for climbing and descending, but to descend they must first be climbed. Trite though it may seem, when this principle is applied to life, it is anything but trite. This is perhaps why mountains are seen prevalently from below, with the gaze inevitably directed upward, toward the summit, making us feel tiny in proportion to an immense world. Indeed, mountains are the symbol of the grandeur of nature; the mere thought of the brutal cold at the top humiliates any human presumption of power. But my mountains are small, and hardly frightening. They don't make you dizzy and they aren't cold even on the coldest winter day. They are made of wood, with the grain facing outward so that they seem harder, more solid and resistant. They posed a serious manufacturing challenge for me, to find a way to make them with the simple, archaic tools for working with solid wood, gluing, inlaying and finishing small objects, trying to achieve a natural effect with inescapably geometric forms.
(Michele De Lucchi)