Form Trunk to Object — Christoph Finkel is an Artisan Craftsman who turns Crude into Delicate

Snow covers the mountains for months, until it all melts in the spring and flows down to the valley. Then the time has come for Christoph Finkel to salvage gnarled mountain timber. He hikes through the mountains in search of fallen trees to turn into huge bowls and objects.
Christoph Finkel, who grew up in his father’s sled-making workshop in Bad Hindelang, is now permanently represented as an artist and sculptor at galleries in South Korea, the USA, Scandinavia, Switzerland and Munich.

What distinguishes him from a mere craftsman is the commission. He does not have one at first. Search and selection of the trunk in nature, the adventurous transport, the question of storage time, the woodturning of the trunk, the imagination of what exactly is to become of this never perfect, partly weathered and full of surprises piece of timber – all this can be abruptly lost in a fraction of a second, with a wrong movement or a misjudgement of how the wood will behave. What proud craftsman would take that risk?

His sculptural vessels and bowls are of timeless, cosmic elegance and virtually beg to be bathed in changing light. You can see and touch his exhibits in Bad Hindelang, where the world traveler has his roots and home.