This multi-material tree was a product of the 2019 Santa Fe Opera Prop Shop, encompassing Prop Paints, Prop Crafts and Prop Furniture Carpentry.The design and fabrication of the heat bent steel inner structure, wire wrapping, and additional foam base was a product of SFO furniture carpentry staff Ariel Lacey and myself. Using non-traditional methods we oxy-acetylene heat bent a variety of steel box tube and 1/4” cold and hot rolled steel rod into trunk, limbs, branches, and root system for the tree. We then further refined and built up the structure using a wire mesh to act as base for the spray expanding foam that would later be craved by the prop painters into the bark. Using research based off of real bonsai and cedar trees we were able to accurately fabricate the designers vision.
