Another work in progress! This copper tree is part of a commission for James Monroe elementary school in Edison, NJ. On March 1, I blogged about the bird that will be perched in this tree and now the tree is starting to take shape. Because the process of constructing this tree is new to me, I’ve been struggling a bit with how to attach the branches. My idea was to temporarily affix them with epoxy and then wrap the entire tree in copper wire for texture and interest. But the epoxy has been giving me problems and I wasn’t sure this would work. Over the past few days, I spent a lot of time sitting on the floor of my studio, fiddling with wire, tubing, epoxy, screws, and tape. I decided to do a test branch and wrapped it with wire to see how it would hold— and it worked! So I ordered 10 rolls of 18 gauge copper wire (a total of 2,000 yds. which I hope will be enough). I also had the idea to make a little owl who is tucked into a hole in the tree— you can see the top of his head peaking up at the bottom of the photo. He is a visual reference to the school’s mascot and a tie in with the commission I created for them last year. So much more to do but it’s coming along, little by little.