portfolio > Mending the Trees. 2016
Wood displays characteristics of both the nature and the nurture of the tree. The grain pattern can signify growth patterns, age, climate, even trauma and resilience. Trees are also commonly used as metaphor and familial relationships are commonly mapped on a simplification of their image. This series is a response to locating my birth relatives, gaining insight into that which is my nature, and that which is my nurture. Neither this nor that, but pieced from both.
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Mending the Trees.
Detail
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Mending the Trees
For this piece I merged the idea of the family tree with the notion of a quilt, pieced together to form a whole. I combined wood in both its natural state with bark and live edges (nature) with wood that had been milled to a specific form (nurture.) Thin slices were stitched together and sewn into a custom frame. Pine, Birch and Hemp. 69" x 18" x 3"
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Mending the Trees
Side view.
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Pelt
Is it possible to repair that which has been so fundamentally fragmented? A mended thing is not whole, but neither is it broken. Beetle Kill Pine and Hemp. 44" x 5" x 1/8"
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Pelt
Detail
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Bloom
Spalted Aspen, Birch and Hemp. 10" diameter.