
Jennifer Trask’s materials—whether bone, wood, metal, or antique fragments—function as collaborators in her sculpting process. Their physical properties and embedded histories guide her decisions, shaping how she responds to their density, grain, and structural limits.
Alex Palmer’s article in the Smithsonian Magazine (2016) sums up the impetus behind her process:
Ultimately, Trask sees her work as a means to explore the human tendency to cultivate and curate the world around us in an effort to present a notion of abundance and beauty. She plays with ideas of our self-perceptions of our position in the natural order.
‘Did you know trees communicate through their roots?’ she asks, wondering if humans aren’t delusional to think they hold the upper hand.”
Subscribe to the Art Spiel Weekly Newsletter. It Matters to us!
SUBSCRIBE HERE
I see strong Baroque roots in your work. What draws you there?
Irony. What got me started on this path was a beautiful 18th-century Italian frame. I was invited to make something for a show called Dead or Alive at the Museum of Art and Design in 2009 by Chief Curator David McFadden. I can share some sketches that did not materialize because they spell out my thought process. I bought a frame on eBay, gorgeous, gilt wood carvings of perfectly symmetrical acanthus leaves. As I contemplated this frame comprised of wood from likely mature trees the oddness of the whole endeavor struck me. Trees were felled, cut down into linear pieces, and then those pieces were laminated and carved into these idealized leaf forms. For me, that encapsulated the way humans generally look at nature. What is perfect? What is ideal? For me, it is not in symmetry or “perfection.”
And, yes, the form language of Baroque art is sumptuous and seductive.



How do you see your work in the context of the art/craft relationship?
I don’t. Honestly, when I work there isn’t any concern with how the object is categorized. My education covered many disciplines, from drawing, painting, and graphic design to sculpture and specific materials-based disciplines like woodworking and metalsmithing. My teachers encouraged cross-discipline ways of thinking. It was discouraging when I came up against the bias against traditional craft-based formats in the art world at large. I think that is changing now.
I am looking at Abundant Uselessness, where you used found 17th, 18th, and 19th-century gilded frame parts, bones, and teeth. Discarded historical ornamental objects and organic parts fuse seamlessly in your work. Can you tell us about the idea behind this work, when you made it, your source of material, and the process of making the piece?
Who doesn’t love the sense of curiosity and wonder when you encounter something familiar and foreign at the same time? Here is a quote regarding Biophilia from BioArtist George Gessert’s book:
“Certain kinds of uselessness free our minds and provide a sabbath for the senses in which the wonder of things themselves confirms the goodness of being. … One of the great unacknowledged Forces of domestication today may be a hunger for abundant uselessness.”
Rarities like double blossoms, for instance, or unnatural colors could represent security in abundance, wealth, skill, or sensuality. They can also be seen as disturbing and repulsive because they are inviable, infertile, or redundant. The beauty we perceive might result from the opposing forces in balance.
It occurred to me that this very much applies to the Dutch florals. The symbolic and cultivated notions of nature overshadow the authentic. The art of the Vanitas, or Nature Morte, embodies the same qualities of artificial selection. From the selection of the materials to the unnatural lighting apparent in the finished product, the still life is the ultimate curatorial effort.
I am very drawn to Vanitas—Removable “Heart.” I love the scale and the fact that you can hold it in your hand. What can you tell us about it?
This was a pivotal piece for me. It is an act of inclusion. The heart is not an accurate rendition, a hybrid, if you will. I am fascinated by the process of edaphoecotropism; this is the phenomenon where a tree’s living tissue naturally flows around and engulfs obstacles in its path, effectively “growing around” it as it expands over time. In this work there are variations on objects one typically sees in a Vanitas. Several strands of pearls have been absorbed by the wooden frame and the antler “roots” below. There is a carved bone skeleton key, a wasp nest with pearls as larvae, and snail shells.
The heart is seated inside some of the vines – is it an outgrowth of the frame, or is it another organism that the flora has absorbed? I don’t know. The intimacy of touch is and has always been, important to my experience of the world. Starting out as an art jeweler allowed me to make small sculptures that you can touch.

You said you let the “material itself dictate what it will become.” Tell us about your process, your choice of material, and your visual/historical resources. For instance, Heterosis (thrive) from 2021. What is the genesis and process of making this work?
People often ask me if I draw my pieces before I make them. Other than an overall sketch of scale or gesture, I don’t have a need to do that. I have a sense of the overall mood I am trying to evoke. The antlers and wood have varying densities that will flex or resist, perform as structural elements or merely additive elements. Building with these materials is a back-and-forth of me imposing my vision and also being open to what arises as I work with the materials.
I was also reading Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire at this time:
“The Greeks believed …Great Art is born when Apollonian form and Dionysian ecstasy are held in balance, when our dreams of order and abandon come together. “(p. 106)
Make your tax-deductible donation today and help Art Spiel continue to thrive. DONATE
Tell us more about yourself.
Ever since I can remember, I have had the urge to arrange my surroundings into environments with a visual flow, a relationship between object and form. I am more at home in nature than in a city. I feel most at peace when I am in a natural setting far away from manmade chaos or when fully absorbed in my work.
I am a compulsive gardener. I buy trees, shrubs, and flowers, and I grow vegetables, fruit, and nuts like hazelnuts and chestnuts. I find it hard to stay inside during the growing season. My latest passion project involves working with the Open Space Institute to preserve an area that includes the land on which I currently reside. That includes cleaning up garbage and tires left by a previous owner, restoring the soil health, and planting dozens of trees. I see myself as a partner, a steward of the place. The thought that most of these trees will live for several generations is both humbling and thrilling.

What are you working on now?
Good question. There are a dozen unfinished fragments (perhaps more) in the studio. I am venturing into new territory, or is it? Moving from 3D to 2D in a sort of opposite of the way I have before. I’m reluctant to share too much because I haven’t had a chance to resolve these pieces.
So far, I have built more of these somewhat anatomical hearts out of bone and shell, and other calciferous materials. I talked to a chiropractor friend who has an X-ray setup to take images of them, some with my hands as well. It’s an odd sort of back and forth between the slow act of accretion, and then the introspection of the image. I’m uncomfortable in that specific way that making art can (and should) leave you–vulnerable. There are images of my body, my spine, my heart.
Beyond that, I don’t know yet.
About the artist: Jennifer Trask attended Massachusetts College of Art, completing her BFA in Metalsmithing. In 1997 she graduated from the State University of New York at New Paltz with an MFA, also in Metalsmithing. Trask’s work has been cited in many books and periodicals, including TimeOut New York, The New Yorker, W Magazine, the Archives of American Art, American Craft, and the Boston Sunday Globe Arts section, among others. Her pieces can be found in many public collections around the world, including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Art + Design in New York, NY; the CODA Museum in Apeldoorn, Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock, AR; and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. @traskstudio