Form and Function.

I had recently watched an interesting series on You Tube entitled "Craft in America" featuring the late George Nakashima's woodwork. I won't go into many details as far as the documentary goes, but one of George's concepts in the art that he produced was the necessity for functionality, while still remaining simple yet elegant in form.
I think of the tree when considering this simple elegance. A stationary object, but yet look at an ancient tree and follow it's complex branching structure. The eye moves along, twisting and turning and swooping, not still in the least bit. Many processes are occurring all at once, internally and externally, horizontally and vertically, but our eye may only catch a slight flutter of leaves from a passing breeze. As with any great piece of art, the tree is also composed from a voracious system of many organic parts. It's form is obvious and hidden at once, it's function is basic sustenance.
The arborist and furniture maker have much in common I think, although different crafts, both depend highly on those functions of the tree. How wood is made and how wood is broken down, divided up and preserved. The form of the tree can determine a piece of furniture's bend and bow, it can determine how the arborist walks a limb or bounces momentarily cutting a piece of deadwood free. Of course, a tree's form is directly related to the function of support. When a tree can't support itself: it sheds, it shuts down, it compartmentalizes.
In return for the tree's inability to move as most understand movement, it has many dimensions to it's form, and somehow is able to move it's sculptors and caretakers along many lifetimes of craft. For the craftsman, there are many lifetimes in one ancient tree. The tree has not moved and yet many have moved along underneath it. There is a wisdom in that continuity that a tree internalizes, and I think that wisdom is uncovered by the woodworker. A lasting piece of art created from a lasting piece of nature.
So form and function should always be simple and beautiful. Easier said than done I guess. Just look to the tree. Place your hand on the rough bark of a Chestnut Oak or the smooth bark of a Beech and look upward into the great crown. An old adage is "heavy is the the head that lies the crown" but yet the tree makes it look effortless. That's real majesty. The balance, the strength and the tidiness of the branches should all be inspiring. The foundation and strength in which its rooted should be a reminder of what's important. The energy is transferred directly from that foundation outward, and the tree, by working for itself, works for all those around it. Like the limb walker and the sander of fine grain.