The Landmark Tree
Northerly Island
Chicago, Illinois
United States
This work centers on a single tree teetering on the possibility of failure or life. The viewer is invited into precariousness, to join the tree, a tentative survivor at the margins, with full humility, in this challenging, human-built landscape of neglect. Though the landscape may appear at first glance to be a place of natural beauty, with closer examination, it is revealed as a landscape of threat. As such the tree becomes a surrogate for us, in this Anthropocene age, facing survival, only tentatively.
This is meant to make space for us to confront and contemplate, what most know but prefer not to, our direct, embodied experience of fragility. In seeing this tree, this way, we have the possibility to meet this truth, and in that space, make room for hope, however slender. I hope this viewing might be, as Theodore Roethke, described, ...an event that meant as much as simple seeing.
Finally, Northerly Island (the location where this work was made) is an entirely artificial construction. Part of Burnhams grand vision for Chicago. I recently learned that the building of this island (and much of Chicagos coastal land, is a transgression against treaties with the native people who lived here and still do, a case which is ongoing. As far as I understand it some of the tribes include Potawatomi and Peoria.
Handmade artist book
Edition of 30 with variations
13"T (stick height variable) x 3"
Detail
Edition of 30 with variations
13"T (stick height variable) x 3"
Black and white photographs on Hiromi Japanese long fiber paper with hand sewing, found twig and small pebble from location. Cover boards with linen book cloth.
$1500
Shipping available in US or Internationally.
Please contact me with interest if this speaks to you.