NEW YORK, April 25, 2014 – Acclaimed wood sculptor Emilie Brzezinski introduced her forthcoming monograph, The Lure of the Forest, on stage at the Huffington Post’s THRIVE Conference in the New York City Center Friday.

Brzezinski was a guest speaker at the two-day THRIVE event that sought to redefine success beyond money and power and empower its participants to thrive. For Brzezinski, sculpting is what causes her to thrive. “What drives me is a dream, an idea,” she said. And so, for the first time first time in public, she shared her story.

In front of a crowd of 2,000 people, the sculptor took to the stage with her daughter, Mika Brzezinski, to have a discussion about The Lure of the Forest, and her personal obsession of sculpting with the wood medium.

The Lure of the Forest, which is set to arrive on bookshelves in stores across the United States in May, chronicles Brzezinski’s impressive 30-year career as a sculptor. Published by New York City publisher, Artbook, D.A.P., the book includes 200 pages of vivid imagery of the tree sculptures Brzezinski has created since the 1970s.

“It’s a perfect coffee table book; it’s gorgeous,” Mika Brzezinski said. “It came out exactly as I envisioned it.”

Having officially introduced the book at the THRIVE event in New York, there are already plans for Brzezinski and her daughter to go on a traveling book discussion and signing tour. Over the course of the next month and a half both will be busy with events at bookstores and libraries in Connecticut, Miami, and Washington D.C.

The audience in the theater was able to take in the full scope of Brzezinski’s tree sculptures, too. That’s because towering behind the mother-daughter duo on stage was Lament, one of Brzezinski’s latest sculptures. Composed of three gargantuan red oak trunks each weighing around 1,500 pounds, and standing at approximately fifteen feet high, this work is one of Brzezinski’s largest.