About This Project

Forest Stories

1995

50 hand-carved bowls made from wood burls gleaned from northern Ontario clear-cut, sculpted iron branch stands, encaustic and mixed media paintings, photographs, branches, stumps, lichen covered rocks, moss, wood shavings and milkweed

“A Forest shares a history which each tree remembers, even after it has been felled.”

— Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces, 1996

 

The impetus to scavenge in a boreal forest slash pile came from a girlhood desire to carve bowls from burls. Over the course of this installation, branches snapped underfoot, milkweed pods popped, and crickets chirped. I watered daily to keep the leaves, moss and peat from drying, but mostly to keep the memory of a forest alive.

Exhibition History:

Gallery 401, Toronto, ON, 1995

Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, Toronto, ON, 1996

Photo Credits: Catherine Lash