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Strong Willow
Willow saplings, Klein Artworks, Chicago, April 29 1998
First was made with willow. Then we replaced the willow with living trees
(for the roots and so it lives and grows and become one). Then some of the
living pear trees died. The problem was the weed whacker that stripped the
bark off the trees and then the rabbits that ate the bark off of them. When
I returned from Italy in 2000 I re-designed the work over the existing
living trees and used arches in another way. So Strong Willow has been now
in two forms, from reeds as the horizontals to then willow in 1998. The
gallery was impatient for it to take shape and
grow. These pieces had to grow. The form of the work was made to fit the
top of the small hill that it was on and to emphasize the rise with a kind
of cap. The willow was gathered from wetlands on the way to Chicago. They
grew so thin and straight there. I selectively picked them and returned
year after year for new ones. But last year [fall of 2001], the small woods
was bulldozed and now it is a large new BMW car lot.
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Strong Willow
Willow saplings, Klein Artworks, Chicago, April 29 1998
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Golden Ring
Reeds, Evanston Art Center, Evanston IL, May 10, 1997
Golden Ring, an oval 55 X 77 feet all of reeds. Finished 20 minutes before
the opening of 6pm May 10, 1997. I remember returning to the site just
after the opening began, people in and around the work and the light golden
rays and low in the slightly misty evening, like mid summer nights eve, I
thought. It took 10 days to make with much time searching around for the
phragmites reeds. I got most of them in Calumet near the dump of Chicago;
they grow very tall and profusely. I made the work to fit the size of the
large lawn. And the cars drive by so I set each oval [and there were eight
in all] on an angle so each would dove tail into the other and as you drove
by and looked you would see a kind of progression of interlocking rings
like a chain, but then not quite. Reeds are not very strong. At least not
the vertical reeds. When they are bundled they do hold the form but the
spaced out vertical ones seem to break at the place where it goes into the
ground or where the bundled horizontal crosses. So the piece was maintained
and was to last 2 months but Michel Row Schield kept it up until the middle
of August. What a sad event to dismantle it..but all was not lost. Three
rings we carried and re-installed by the house of Katie O'Niel, the founder
of the Evanston Art Center and the person who took care of me. I made the
three ovals interlock and go around the corner of her corner house. One
other oval ring I put in the front yard of an art teacher at the school
Pattie (don't have her name here) and I set it out on also a tilt toward
the street. The last four I wanted to float on Lake Michigan to let them go
in the wind to the Michigan shore. If only there was the insight to do a
'Christo' event, but the maintenance man broke them up for the dumpster.
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Growth Rings Bamboo
, Green Festival, Hiroshima, Japan, September 9, 1997
Growth Rings, made for the green festival of Hiroshima. In it I used two
different kinds of bamboo, the vertical and then smaller, thinner ones for
the twisting bundles forming the lines. I made them pick fresh bamboo from
the surrounding mountainside so I could have beautiful tops (to say
bamboo). Soon after the work was completed a typhoon hit. They wrapped the
work in nylon rope that worked as a sail more than hold it in place. No
damage happened since Hiroshima is in a mountain valley shelter. The work
was lit and bushes were planted around the work as a base from which it
came out of. When the show was over at the end of November, we took down
the work only somewhat and re-installed it in a kindergarten overlooking
the ferry terminal for Miyajima, an hour away from Hiroshima. It remained
there for another year and the children and teachers watched and
photographed it. I have a beautiful catalogue from that year with images of
it in the snow.
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TSYAMA MON
Rice straw, Osaka College of Art, Osaka, Japan, October 1997
It was very difficult to implant the bamboo into the stony bottom of this
river, a four day job for a 8 hour life of the work. They had a permit to
leave the work only until the Sunday evening and when I came to this city I
was presented by the mayor a medal from the city. The typhoon season was
over and I made the work to last for a year. Little did I know of the short
life the Japanese people had for my art.
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