I was told of a group sculpture exhibition at Sander's Farm in Garrison, New York. It has been going on for a number of years by a group of artist [collaborative concepts] from Beacon, New York that is about 60 miles north of New York City up the Hudson River Valley. This is an active farm with many cows in the fields. And the cows do eat or break the art. Some of the works presented early for the newspaper were very much plop down art and fabricated. My work had to be of nature and I wanted to make something with an isolated tree -- a sort of dress -- LADY OAK. The materials had to be long stemmed weeds gathered from nearby. The tree and the branches told me where the lines should come out from but I knew to end the lines in a pretty even way around the tree. Many times I climbed the ladder to tie up the lines and to measure them out. It took two weeks of working, gathering and bundling them and putting the lines in place. Then for me the ground has to be in control too and I cut the grass well making the interior an integral space. This tree was at the far top field quite alone.
the work is dependent upon the tree. But I present here a photo of mostly only the work. I finished it the day before the show opened on September 2, 2011. It is made out of many kinds of weeds, lots of mugwort and then everything that I could find and I bundled it with jute. It is about 28 feet in diameter. When I returned a few weeks later the weeds were dark and not golden as I expected. the grass grew even and very green under the tree, and still had a controlled impression.
