Bowl

Description

This bowl was hand carved from burl wood – a knotty, irregular growth which can form on trees. Utilitarian household items made from wood are sometimes called treen or treenware, terms which come from the word tree. Burl treen was commonplace in pre-colonial and colonial America, used among Native Americans and European settlers alike. Burls were plentiful in North American forests and their naturally round shapes easily lent themselves to the form of a bowl, while the wood’s interlocking grain made burl treen more durable and less subject to splitting than straight grain woodenware. The design of this bowl, with its deep oval shape, flat base, and cutout handle holes, suggests it was probably created by a Native American artist, most likely from the Eastern Woodlands region of North America.