The only way I know how to make any sense of death is to make something beautiful to commemorate the life lost. I hope this work helps my friends continue to heal from the tragedy they experienced and still struggle with. The process forced me to think about Dylan and process the event more than I would have otherwise.
Dylan Lucas Mathews was referred affectionately as “The Squid” while in utero. The choice to focus on this seemed obvious, but I don’t normally work so subjectively. Keeping the approach respectful and beautiful was imperative to keep it from becoming comic or kraken like.
Hewed a whole side by hand but wasn’t getting the kind of results with the broad axe that I wanted. We would have had too much clean up. So I switched to the chain saw and “Beam Machine” and milled the two sides that way.
