BEING [with] TREES is an ongoing artistic dialogue and series of collaborations. The project began in 2020 and focused on one particular tulip tree in Bristol, RI, thought to be around 230-years old. The project’s first public exhibition was in 2021 at the Rogers Free Library - visible from outdoors and displayed in the library’s front windows for safe viewing. Continuing with the theme of community engagement, in 2022 a self-published booklet was freely available and installed in front of the great tulip tree in downtown Bristol. A Site-Specific Guide to Plant Communication, Land Acknowledgement, Nature-Based Art Making & Healing Practices invited readers to consider the history of the tree and site in which it grows through the lens of multispecies care. A free, Community Workshop was organized in conjunction with the booklet’s installation - the lesson taught by artist Jesseca Ferguson invited participants to join in making a historical photo called an “anthotypes”. Anthotypes are images made using pigments extracted from flowers and plants. The anthotype produced during the workshop was subsequently published in Anthotype Pigments Volume 1 by Malin Fabbri in 2022.

Since then, the project was awarded a SMFA Faculty Research Fellowship, which supported research travel in the Blue Ridge and Southern Appalachian Mountains, materials, and course fees to produce a body of work made in kiln-cast glass at the Penland School of Craft during summer 2023. BEING [with] TREES will be presented in Feb. 2024 as part of the panel Learning from Trees: Artists and Climate Solutions during the College Art Association CAA Annual Conference. Research and travel during summer 2024 will focus on Finnish Forest culture through the opportunity to exhibit at International Jewelry Triennial, KORU8, and to participate in workshops and lectures at The Finnish Forest Museum Lusto in Punkaharju, Finland.

Instagram has been a place to archive the project and a platform to activate social engagement around the projects various forms, activities, and ruminations. You can view the project @beingwithtrees

BEING [with] TREES Project Selected for KORU8, Contemporary Jewelry Exhibition in Finland, 2024 - 2025

Artist Statement:

With their ability to sequester carbon and provide clean water, forests are integral to understand earth’s climate and cultivate sustainable (eco)systems. Using geologic frameworks, I create a fluidity between beings living and non. My current, ongoing project, BEING [with] TREES, centers tree and forest ecosystems rooted in multispecies care networks as a foundation for creative connection. How might we engage tree-time as an embodied practice? What can we learn about seasonality, adaptability, slowness, and deep time from 400-million years of germination; of rootedness? I considers trees ancestors, teachers in a porous, non-verbal dialogue of relational placemaking.

Among indigenous tree-species reforestation efforts in Porto, Portugal, networks of old growth forest throughout the Southern Appalachian region of the United States, and a tulip tree elder in my hometown of Bristol, R.I., I locate sites of artistic engagement and participatory research. The work takes many forms, jewelry, objects, conversations, writings, rituals, exhibits, shared understandings, community workshops; all mycelial threads that support an ongoing collaboration in which trees are participants in artistic creation and biologic exchange.

 Co-created with poplar and magnolia elders in the range of 100-400 years old, recent works in the BEING [with] TREES series titled, “Objects-for-the-End-of-the-World” consider the uncertainty of climate change alongside geologic timefulness of trees. Cast in glass, the objects speak from the perspective of both fossilization and fragility. Necklace tablets paired with necklaces, intended to be worn on the body as portable seed-saving containers, ask the wearer to consider: what will we need to hold? What will we need to carry with us?

The opportunity for international dialogue on the subjecthood of trees, forests, and cultures that honor tree beings through KORU8 is truly humbling; may it lead to collaborative, jewelry-focused climate solutions.

More info: koru8.fi

BEING [with] TREES Kiln Cast Glass Studies: Tulip Tree & Magnolia

BEING [with] TREES Persimmon Studies

This persimmon tree was located in a neighbors yard. A study of the tree’s annual cycle of fruit production started in 2022 resulted in a series of cast objects in porcelain, bronze, plaster, and concrete. The tree died when a polar vortex brought 4 F temperatures to Bristol, RI in winter 2023.

BEING [with} TREES: Little Free Tree Library, Bradford-Dimond-Norris House, Bristol, RI, 2022

BEING [with] TREES, little free tree library installed in front of 250-year old tulip tree in downtown Bristol contained free, self-published booklets with information and prompts related to: plant communication, land acknowledgement, nature-based art making & healing practices, and free pencils, which encouraged participation by those passing by. This activity was made possible in part by a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

BEING [with} TREES: Community Anthotype Workshop with Artist Jesseca Ferguson, Bradford-Dimond-Norris House, Bristol, RI, 2022

Hosted on the sidewalk in front of the great tulip tree, a free, community anthotype workshop led by artist Jesseca Ferguson taught participants to make images using plant pigments. This activity was made possible in part by a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

BEING [with} TREES: public installation at the Rogers Free Library, Bristol, RI, 2021

BEING [with] TREES, installation of cyanotypes and research materials at the Rogers Free Library was the first public presentation of site-specific, relational artwork BEING [with] TREES. The exhibit, located in the front windows of the library and visible 24/7, served as an opportunity to promote practices of multispecies care and to center social and environmental justice. Through prompts and questions, participants were invited to connect with a large, sentient tree being and to add their own reflections to a shared dialogue. This activity was made possible in part by a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.