Mark Cantrell for Cactus Gallery

As a child Mark's favorite pastime was building fairy houses among the deciduous trees of Ohio. Eventually he let himself be convinced that he needed a real job, at one point studying and working as a naturalist/field biologist. That somehow turned into 25 years of teaching, mostly in elementary schools. 

All the while his imagination was kept well packed and hidden from the world in the back of my mind. Now he is retired and can do whatever he wants, so he carves and makes creatures that come from the scattered myths, ancient stories, and dark corners of our collective minds.

The wood is the important story here. Each creature he creates is the product of the growth and time of trees and shrubs. All of that conspires with climate, weather, and the accompaniment of beetles, grubs, fungus and parasitic infestation. How the grain of wood records all this drama is an endless fascination.

Mark forages for wood on dog walks and hikes into the outdoors where I lives and where he travels. He has strict rules about only collecting dead and downed wood. If a piece has begun to decompose to the point where it already belongs to the soil and the biota underneath, he leaves it to return to the cycles to which it belongs. He will not disturb or offend the powers that be.

The wood that becomes a creature is Mark's earnest attempt to glorify all that experience of the parent plant, while exalting the spirit that dwells within each piece.

Mark lives and creates in Silver City, New Mexico.