Vera

Our good friends, Gene and Jackie, who live in the mountain town of Oracle, Arizona, have visited often and have been interested in the progress of our art.  On occasions when we are visiting them, Gene has offered wood trimmings from his property to use in construction of my vessels.  On one visit I brought home a pickup load of Manzanita limbs.  These shrubs with beautiful smooth red limbs grew all over his property and he had been pruning them so the beauty of their colorful limbs was more visible.  I made a number of vessels from this load of Manzanita, one named for the scientific family, Arctostaphylos, which I gave to our Oracle friends.

On another occasion Gene was taking down a Pistachio tree damaged by the cold winter.  I didn't hesitate when he offered me as much wood as I wanted.  I enjoy the pistachio nuts and try to keep some on hand to snack on.

I was surprised Gene had lost his tree due to cold winter weather.  It is a deciduous tree, requiring approximately 1,000 hours of temperature at or below 45 degrees F, in order to grow normally after its winter dormancy.  Pistachio nut trees are, generally suited for areas where summers are long, hot and dry, and winters are moderately cold.  A native desert tree, it does not tolerate high humidity in the growing season.

These showy trees when in full bloom in late March are beautiful specimen in addition to the nuts they produce.  The male pollinates the female via the April winds, and the shell of the nut is fully developed by mid-May.  Before  June ends, the seed inside the shell has begun its rapid expansion and by the first of August, the seed has filled the shell.  The nuts, splitting at the seams, are usually ready to be harvested the first week of September.

The scientific name for the pistachio is Pistacia vera L.  It is a member of the family Anacardiaceae which contains such widely known plants as the cashew, mango and poison oak.  The title for the above art vessel, "Vera" was taken from the second part of the scientific name of the Pistachio tree. The wood used in this piece was that which Gene gave me.  The tinted green resin tops to the two necks of the vessel symbolize the green of the nutmeat from the pistachio.  The dimensions of this piece are:  27 in.h. x 15 in.w. x 6 in. d.


*More detail can be found on my art at my website <www.apatchablue.com>.