Review

"Woven Wood" (Detail), Cherry, Ash, Hackberry, Sweet Gum, Oak and Walnut Wood.

Todd Baker
Woven Wood and Danglers

12 a.m.-11:59 p.m.

Art in R Park

Roe Blvd. at 57th St. (Woven Wood)

Roeland Park Community Center (Danglers)
4850 Rosewood Drive
Roeland Park, KS
913.722.0310

Hours: 24 hours, seven days (both works).
Runs through: March 31.

Art in R Park site: http://www.roelandpark.net/art-in-r-park.html

Let's see ... everything is covered in white, there's an Arctic Blast moving through the area, and I'm sending you outside to look at art?

Fine. You don't have to go today. But come on ... aren't you just a tiny bit curious to see how Todd Baker's wood pieces look in the snow? (Answer: Great. I drove past both Woven Wood and the Danglers on a grocery run yesterday afternoon.)

Both sculptures, part of the current season of Art in R Park, represent significant departures from Baker's previous large-scale work. That centered on Easter Island-style heads, which Baker produced by taking chainsaws to tree trunks salvaged from his tree service business.

(The guy has a sawmill at his house. How cool is that?)

One of those big pieces, Ed the Head, was featured in a previous installment of Roeland Park's public art program and is now part of the city's permanent collection. You can see it today, too, if you brave the weather. It's at the Roeland Park Aquatics Center.

Instead of being formed from one large hunk of wood, both pieces in this round are collections of smaller components. And in each case, the name gives away the look of the work.

Woven Wood, a detail view of which is pictured above, is is Baker's first large-scale example of a form he has explored for some time in smaller works. He chose the wood — strips of hackberry, ash, sweet gum, walnut, oak and cherry — from a pile of what a friend called "trash that needed to be cut up and burned."

Baker put the scraps to better use, obviously. Woven Wood offers a different look from every angle, of light as well as view. Shadows are an inherent part of the piece, making repeated viewings a must. (The weave also does a gorgeous job of capturing snow and incorporating it into the whole.)

Baker created the Danglers, meanwhile, as a way to provide what he calls a sharp contrast to trees, with their rigid lines and geometrical shapes. When wind, weather and light come into play, the pieces take on an entirely different look.

So, really, you do need to see Baker's art in the snow, as well as when it's nicer out, to get the full effect. Bundle up and be careful on the streets, though ... you have to be in one piece, after all, when things finally warm up again.