Ryan Kelley

One of Kelley’s most popularly commissioned and recognized sculptures are his wire trees, which he attaches to small granite boulders. The intricacy of the branches coupled with their fierce, windswept movement is reminiscent of mountaintop flag-trees, called so because of the heavy winds that make the tree’s branches grow in a banner-like shape. When observing the sculpture's tree trunk, which looks like an abstract spiral staircase winding upwards as it splays into spindly branches, one can’t help but feel as if the tree grew on its own.

“I live in the woods, I’ve always been surrounded by trees,” says Kelley. “The tree hanging on to a rock says a lot about the sculpture – perseverance, strength, and holding on tightly to something.”

Byfield's Wire Artist Ryan Kelley

Northshore Magazine.  By Alexandra Pecci  October 2014

"Stone and copper wire don’t typically exude grace, beauty, and warmth, but when they’re in the hands of wire artist Ryan Kelley something nearly magical happens. A stone becomes a solid, sturdy base for trees whose delicate metal branches twist, turn, and come alive, as though they’re caught in a breeze or about to burst into bloom.
“I can take a spool of melted metal and through twisting, you turn something that’s very harsh and very cold into something that looks alive,” says Kelley. “I like to be able to step back and say, it started as a five-pound spool and now it’s a two-foot tall tree.' 

What began as a word-of-mouth business for family and friends has quickly bloomed into something much bigger. He not only creates custom commissions that can fetch anywhere from $100 to $5,000 or more but has also been tapped by Beverly-based interior designer Amanda Greaves to create custom pieces for local businesses. “I think he has a really great energy,” Greaves says. “His trees are amazing.”

And although he’s young, Kelley, at 21-years, is already very involved in the North Shore arts community, working to bring a new, youthful vibe to seaside galleries that are so often crowded with paintings of ocean scenes in gilded frames. He’s a member of the Newburyport Art Association and also serves on its board of directors."

Paul Angiolillo

Paul Angiolillo

When Asia asked if there was anything special I wanted to say about trees, my reaction, after a moment’s thought, was: What’s not special about trees? What hasn’t been rightly celebrated about these giant creatures? I thought I’d Google some quotes about trees. Here are some of my favorites:

It has been said that trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment rooted in the ground. But they never seem so to me. I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far! ~John Muir, July 1890

You can live for years next door to a big pine tree, honored to have so venerable a neighbor, even when it sheds needles all over your flowers or wakes you, dropping big cones onto your deck at still of night.  ~Denise Levertov

The groves were God’s first temples. ~William Cullen Bryant

I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I’ll never see a tree at all. ~Ogden Nash,

Of all the wonders of nature, a tree in summer is perhaps the most remarkable; with the possible exception of a moose singing “Embraceable You” in spats. ~Woody Allen