“Into the Blue” is functional artwork, an excellent looking and feeling cane at its core but with remarkable natural history top to bottom.

The handle is ancient Red Gum from Australia and it's nearly black. It spend approximately 10,000 thousand years buried in a river bed being slowly stained darker and darker by mineral exposure but deprived of oxygen thus preventing decay. It was pulled a few years ago, carefully dried, and now works and feels like a regular piece of wood! It's highly figured, some of the most figured ancient material I've ever acquired, making it one of my most unique offerings. In most room lit environments a first glance and the cane is quite dark, the handle appearing black, but in brighter light this wood comes alive with magnificent, chatoyant curls and subtle red colors all easily appreciated.

The end of the handle has a piece of the Aba Panu stony meteorite, a unique meteorite because it was an observed fall in 2018 over Nigeria. The asteroid entered the earth’s atmosphere as a giant fireball and exploded at an altitude of 30km. Many people saw the asteroid and it was recorded by Nasa as well, so it is a confirmed observed fall of a large meteorite. This space rock’s visit on planet earth has only been 8 years! Its appearance is primarily warm greys with a few specs of iron that flash on occasion. With close observation there are many small spherical shapes in the meteorite, these are called “chondrules” which are essentially the very earliest building blocks of the solar system. When the nebula that birthed our solar system first began the process of accretion, these tinny chondrules were the first to form, about 4.6 Billions years ago.

In the divider is German Silver with a nice shine and a very eye-catching piece of blue box elder burl wood. It is very unusual for me to use artificial color or any dye in my work but this is a rare exception and truly completes the cane. The shaft is Ukrainian Bog Oak wood, another sinker wood that has undergone a very similar process as the red gum handle but a different species from another part of the world. This wood is literally “mined” out of the ground but comes out a workable timber. This wood is approximately 5,000-7,000 years old and its a dark, warm grey color.

Cane weight is medium, It could be used and enjoy by most anyone. Daily use functional but probably best for special occasions. Total length measures 38" and can be shortened to fit.

For more information on the Aba Panu meteorite, follow this link to The Official Meteoritical Society website page: https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meteor/metbull.cfm?sea=aba+Panu&ants=&nwas=&falls=&valids=&stype=contains&lrec=50&map=ge&browse=&country=All&srt=name&categ=All&mblist=All&rect=&phot=no&strewn=no&snew=0&pnt=Normal+table&sfor=names&code=67799

The second to last image is of an Australian red gum tree that is a few hundred years old and still standing (To represent the species). The man inside is one of my Australian timber sources. He was not even considering cutting such a special tree, just admiring.

The last image is of an oak log being recovered from the bog.

M A T E R I A L S

Handle – Ancient Red Gum from Australia

Divider – German Silver and Box Elder burl from New York

Shaft – Ancient bog Oak from Ukraine

Meteorite - Aba Panu from Outer Space

Rubber tip

Every Gillis Cane is a photographed original, you’ll always receive the exact cane in the images.