You Melt My Heart

This is not a quiet piece — it pulls you in and holds you there. A dramatically twisted column of salvaged Utah mountain wood rises from a raw, resin-sealed bark base, its grain alive with decades of reaching and bending. From one outstretched branch, a dark iron chain descends — and suspended from it, a deep crimson heart, glossy and melting, dripping as if liquefied by weight it can no longer contain. The contrast is electric: ancient, stoic wood against a heart that bleeds and yields. Every element here is deliberate and hand-worked. Mel Johnson didn't build this sculpture — he found it inside materials that had already lived a life, and coaxed out a narrative that hits collectors square in the chest. The texture of the wood grain, the heft of the chain, the visceral gloss of that melting heart — this is Folk Art and Conceptual Art fused at the highest level of craft, the kind of piece that anchors a room and starts every conversation that happens in it. For the serious collector, this represents exactly what Wildgoose Mountain Woodcrafts has built over more than a decade: irreplaceable, one-of-a-kind sculptural work that cannot be replicated because the raw material itself is unrepeatable. Shown at PTG & AV Gallery in Las Vegas, this piece is as investment-worthy as it is emotionally unforgettable.