Wayne Trinklein’s professional training totally lacks a formal artistic schooling. Preministerial education followed by a medical degree gave him the background in biology, physics, chemistry, and the science knowledge he craved, and the beginnings of an understanding of how this world and its people function and relate together. During his Family Practice residency and he began making his sculptures. All his work stems from a desire to find meaning and purpose in the beautiful people around him. He needed believable trees to tell the stories of honorable individuals just being themselves. He spent evenings making sculptures, and even spare time in the doctor’s lounge while waiting for women in labor. He climbed trees and mountains, wrote verse, and dreamed of new ways to better tell his stories with his trees. After 25 years of busy medical practice he had to choose, and his sculpting has consumed his full time for 2 decades Wayne was passionate but somewhat naïve. It was his wife, Susan, who finally had to enlighten him, “You are not just a tree maker, Wayne, you are an artist”.

His tree characters include the energetic, relational Aspens for his brother, and the romantic Redbud to portray his wife’s smile. His steadfast, experienced Big Hearted Oak sits on the desk of several Governors. He precedes the development of each tree by writing verse about the special natural gift of each person he wishes to honor.

To make his trees realistically required a new technology, a new medium. Wayne devised a process of molding copper wire and fusing it with tin to recreate the cellulose fiber and lignin of real trees. Later he created an alloy which he applies to the trunk and heats it to its “eutectic point”, where it can be worked like clay to get the look of realistic bark. He developed patinas and heat treatments to expand his palette of colors. Recently, colored resins have been added to reflect flowering trees. He developed an electrostatic process to attach gold leaves that “quiver”. The trees have come alive, and now communicate his stories even more convincingly.

His trees and the personalities behind them can be found on his websites,

www.waynetrinklein.com and www.grandnatural.com.