Roots of the Queen Beech (front)
Wood, multiple photographs
12.5 x 20.5 x 8.5 inches
2023

The International Roots Project seems to encompass the heart of my artistic direction: exploring our kinship of trees and their roots.

I have long been drawn to trees, mostly of mature unique individuals. I am fascinated by their strength and beauty, their forms that, marked by severed limbs, scars, burns, lichens and mosses, reveal their life stories. I’m drawn to their gnarled roots and hearty trunks that remind me of my own body, and I want to hug them. I think of how they are challenged to make a whole life rooted to one spot, reaching down into the rocky earth for nutrients and water and up into the sunlight for their miraculous photosynthetic meal-making. I notice the evidence of the challenges of storms, droughts, insects, animals and humans, and now the blazing heat of a changing climate. Above ground roots betray a slow-motion muscley wrangling to anchor and stabilize the heavy trunk and branches. Like trees connected with mycorrhizal threads we humans are rooted in community.

Working with multiple photographs, wooden boxes, burned planks and branches, I honor these inspiring models of beauty, determination and adaptability, who offer us so many lessons in rootedness and connection.