Stare long enough at the cross-cut wood prints from Stephen King, owner of SAP Hardwood Floors LLC in Chapin, S.C., and you might start to see things. "You can see one that looks like a bird or a wave; a woman thought she saw a baby in a womb," says King, a floor installer and sander by day, artist by night. "I had one that looked like an anatomical heart." Elementary school art project this is not. First King takes a walk through the woods on his property and searches for fallen trees with unique shapes. He cuts segments from the tree and sands the rough face until it's as smooth as a mirror, King says. Then he torches the wood face. Charring the grain, he found, allows him to brush away the early wood, leaving the late wood and its grooves intact. He rolls ink onto it and presses it onto specialty paper imported from Japan. The end result is spellbinding. A recent oak burl print on Instagram received 148 likes, and captivated followers commented what they saw in the ink—a stone fish, a ski hill, South Carolina's Edisto Island. "My original purpose behind this was to give the tree a second chance at life," King says. "Every day in life we pass so many trees and we don't get to see the inside of them." King sells his prints on Instagram (@sapwoodworking) and his Etsy site, www.etsy.com/shop/Sapwoodworks.
