Although I struggled to decide who to take as inspiration, I finally settled on Andy Goldsworthy.  He is a sculptor that focuses on using materials in nature.  There is actually an Andy Goldsworthy sculpture at Cantor Arts Center at Stanford.  The piece that I decided to use is titled "River Of Earth" 

After seeing this pattern I thought the texture would really carry through when engraved by the laser cutter.  

This is a very very rough prototype of concept.