INSIDE THE ORDINARY MAPLE, 1998

"I passed a half-dozen artworks at Chesterwood's contemporary sculpture exhibition earlier this week before I came upon Linda Hoffman's "Inside the Ordinary Maple" and knew that I had found something extraordinary.

It was no more than a scattering of stumps and logs on the forest floor. But inside of each log, where the growth rings form, had been gilded with gold. That device transformed these ordinary objects into works of art and their site into a magic grove.

By using the precious highlight aspects of the ordinary, Hoffman upset our sense of what's normal and forces us to see these trees in a new way. It is an image not easily forgotten."

Charles Bonenti, The Berkshire Eagle, July 24, 1999

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