Wood, the Process, and Me

This paper provides an overview of my personal relationship with trees and tree-related materials that I collect, conserve and transform. The focus of the paper, which is a support to the thesis exhibition, is on the process of making sculptures which are part of the thesis exhibition. The experience of the collected found tree forms becomes a metaphor for my chronic illness, a painful condition of the spine that results in the degeneration of the intervertebral disks. The sculptural forms I create represent the frozen moments of restriction and deformation that result in the process of making them. These sculptural forms mimic the restrictions that are the result of the disease as it spreads throughout the body. Artists Eva Hesse, Mark Dion, and Tony Cragg become significant inspirations in understanding the meaning and knowledge behind the materials in their art practices. All of us conserve, reclaim, and reconceptualize in various ways through our material use. The imaginative and physical activity of reconstructing the tree forms informs my relationship with the unseen forms of the spine within me.