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Bunny Bowen’s lifelong love and connection with trees is on display at the Wild Hearts Gallery as “Bunny & Leland Bowen: We Are In The Trees” runs through April 26.

She said the trees near her home of 50 years have been breathing in her oxygen as she breathes in their carbon dioxide.

“So actually, part of me, in a way, is in the very wood I’ve been carving all these years,” Bowen said.

She works closely with juniper trees now and said their limbs can be very interesting.

The male trees have big, long branches, while females have a curvaceous shape, she said. Additionally, juniper wood is rot-resistant. Bowen said sometimes she will pick up a limb off the ground and realize it could have been there for decades.

The branches’ interactions with nature, such as the paths that bark beetles carve through them, make for wonderful pieces, she said.

“The carving has already started,” Bowen said.

Bowen also stains the wood, weighing the grain of the piece against the shape.

“If the shape is what’s interesting and not the grain, then I’ll just use the ink,” she said.

“The ink” is India ink, a technique she learned from a video of a rocking chair being stained. If she finds the grain more interesting, Bowen will sand it down further and then use something like a Minwax Stain, she said.

After carving and staining, Bowen adds a clay piece. She said the process always starts with finding an interesting wood shape, and the clay comes after. Her husband Leland works with Bowen to ensure the pieces hang properly. He crafts the implements the art hangs from.

“Sometimes I’ll have the idea for the clay, but the shape of the clay depends on the branch,” Bowen said.

The process can take a while, she said. Bowen waits for the moment when the pieces come together perfectly.

“They sing together,” she said.

Bowen, who is in her 80s, has been an artist her entire life. She said as the trees around her have grown and changed, so has her art style.

“It’s just an evolution of life. I guess when you’re young, you tackle these big projects, and when you get older, you think, ‘OK, what can I keep doing,’” Bowen said.

Elizabeth Secor is an arts fellow from the New Mexico Local News Fellowship program. You can reach her at esecor@abqjournal.com.