THERE ONCE WAS A TREE

2023

Approx. 35” x 11” x 30”

Cement, tree branches, glass, gold leaf, shellac

There Once Was A Tree continues my exploration of mythology and mythmaking, our inescapable human need for sense-making and meaning-making, exploring the process by which we create our own myths, how we distort nature into another form and imbue it with meaning and purpose; how we mold, break, bond and reshape our experiences into a new narrative, a new myth which continues its cycle of framing how we perceive the world. The materials and process reflect this: the gathering of branches from a dead tree, casting it in cement in a glass container, breaking the glass and using the shards within the piece itself, chiseling the concrete and pouring more concrete over—reshaping, remolding, creating a new form from what was once a tree.

The installation of this piece at Reisig and Taylor Contemporary is exemplary of the incredible dialogue I’ve been fortunate enough to have had with Emily and Zach the curators and what they’ve brought out of the pieces. The crate itself that holds the sculpture, and under which rubble of what could have been once a riverbed (which worked perfectly with the in situ water stain in the space) was originally built for transportation and through Emily’s suggestion, we all agreed it was better presented within the frame itself, returning to an early exploration of mine of bodies or energies framed, and as Zach puts it, the tension between the thought of the sculpture being held in place or the attempt of it being liberated.