Reconsider?

This is the piece I carved for the 2005 NC State Fair Art competition. The idea for this one started out as a doodle during an *extremely* boring meeting at work. (As I recal, that doodle was the only productive thing that came out of that meeting. But I digress...) This is the Serpent and the Apple from Genesis. The Serpent has wings, since I wanted something to indicate that this is *before* the fall. I was originally going to title this something like "Cain's First Rattle", since the apple is actually carved loose inside the loops of the snakes tail, making a rattle, but that seemed a little heavy-handed. I could probably go on for several pages about the story of Adam and Eve, and what it says to me about choice, and consequences, and leaving childhood behind, and Grace. But that sounds like something that would be better for a discussion than a description.

Carved out of Ambrosia Maple. I don't know if this was part of what the wood was treated with, but this particular chunk of maple smelled like hickory smoke. And it was very silky and soft to carve, although some of that could be in comparison to the rock-hard oak I've been working with previously. The apple took three days to separate from the loops of the snakes tail. I wouldn't have been able to do it without my Dremel, and for those three days the apple became my nemisis.