Tree Burl
Artist’s Statement
My art work can be influenced by something I heard, something I read, the news of the world, some conversation today. Sometimes ideas come as free-association. Or it can be premeditated. I gather this thought, inspiration, and effort together, then I express my ideas through clay.
One spring day I walked with my partner in Kalaloch’s coastal woods.
I was not sure the gray and wet was fog or rain or cloud.
I did not know if I heard wind blowing or waves crashing.
Glad, but down, not tired, but slow.
Thoughtless, following the sound of my partner’s footstep, something stopped me.
Something dark, but not bigger than me. I looked up to see. Level with my eye.
First, I thought it was a belly. A pregnant belly. I raised my hand to touch it, cold and hard.
It was not a belly. I looked close and up. A tree. It was not a belly.
It was a burl. A tree burl. I started looking around. I started seeing more burls.
The trees are very much alive. They are living with burls.
Once a time, the burl was a foreign object. It could be some bugs, or a scar, like a cancer.
Somehow these trees embrace and grow healthy with this cancer.
And stand in front of me.
This is my burl, this is our burl.
The cancer can occur in our body, but also our family and society.
We do need to fight the cancer with all our power, and also embrace.
We need to live and grow together just like these trees.
when: April 20th to July 19th
where: 120 State Ave Olympia
https://www.olympiaartspace.org