two-by-four

"Typically we think the whole tree is the same--that there's only two-by-fours out of a tree--and that's not really the right way to go."

This time, though, the work--also of sections of brick walls, hammered-together two-by-fours, and sheets of corrugated steel isolated and torqued as if hovering against the unpainted linen backgrounds--stemmed from a more personal source.

"It's a low-cost program--you need two sheets of plywood and a couple of two-by-fours," says Joe Clayton, field operations coordinator of Orange Community Recycling.

He says Canada's forest industry will emerge from its down-cycle stronger than ever with a more diverse product base that's not so reliant on producing two-by-fours.

Products like finger-joints blend themselves better into that market than conventional two-by-fours."