Paul Lewis travels the world in pursuit of unusual stones. Studying in high school and college under internationally-known and well-regarded sculptors he learned that it is not just the sculpture that makes the artwork memorable, but sometimes it is the title as well. In his spare time, Lewis is a landscape architect in Los Angeles and he usually drinks decaf coffee with a RedBull.

Artist Statement: Apologies to Marcel Proust, “À la recherche du bouleaux perdu (Remembrance of Birches Past)” is a sculptural work similarly in seven parts. It is an exploration of time, space and memory and a condensation of innumerable branches, structural form and a stylization of the tree’s essence. With a recent construction project at my brother’s house, there was a birch tree in the way of progress. While my sister-in-law agonized for hours and my brother sought to redesign the house around this birch that they had enjoyed for ten years, eventually there was no option but to cut the tree down. Upon the tree’s demise, I went to the construction site and saved many portions of the tree for a yet to be determined sculpture as a tribute to that beloved tree, the balance of the tree and several Juniperus chinensis ‘Torulosa’ were shipped off to a Hollywood prop yard for studio rentals and have now started a successful career as stand-ins for real trees. The key and seminal part of the sculpture hangs in my brother’s new home. The other pieces have started to make their way around the country into other collections. This is the final piece yet to be distributed. Its provenance can be confirmed and certified for the discriminating collector.

Some cell towers are actually decorated well, most are not. Most are grotesque aberrations of trees. Almost all of them are so far out of scale from the surrounding landscape that anything other than manifesting them as just a tower is hideous. “Cell Towers” is a salute to these often ridiculous efforts by officially naming the cellular towers as they have been decorated. As a profession, how are we dealing with cellular towers in the visual space that is part of our work? More times than not, the landscape architect is merely hired to shrub up the base around the tower, as if this is somehow going to reduce the tower’s impact on the visual space above it. So now when you drive down the highway, at least you will know what to call each one by name.