ARTWORK > Unchopping a Tree

Photograph courtesy of Boise Art Museum
Acrylic, ink, hemp twine, and metal leafing on wood
Installed at The Sparrow Boise, Idaho July 2024-January 2025
Unchopping a Tree (detail)
Acrylic, ink, and hemp twine on wood
Unchopping a Tree (detail)
Acrylic and metal leafing on wood
Unchopping a Tree: Rings
Wood
12 foot diameter
2021
Unchopping a Tree: Rings
Wood
12 foot diameter
2021
Unchopping a Tree: Rings
Wood
12 foot diameter
2013
Unchopping a Tree: Rings
Wood
12 foot diameter
2013
Unchopping a Tree #6
Wood, acrylic, and string
2015
Unchopping at Tree #7
Wood, acrylic, and string
2015
Unchopping a Tree #2 - detail
Tree branches, wool felt, and linen thread
85" h x 25" w x 1.5" d
2013
Unchopping a Tree #5
Cut tree branches, acrylic, wool felt, embroidery thread, and string
2015
Unchopping a Tree #5 (detail)
Cut tree branches, acrylic, wool felt, embroidery thread, and string
2015
Unchopping a Tree #1
Tree trunk and steel
92"h x 10" w x 10" d
2013
Unchopping a Tree #1 - detail
Tree trunk and steel
92" h x 10" w x 10" d
2013
Unchopping a Tree #8
String and poplar tree
2015
Unchopping a Tree #8
String and poplar tree
2015
Standing Still: The Trees #10
Ink, acrylic, wool felt, and nails on wood
18" diameter x 2" w
2017
Standing Still: The Trees #9
Ink and silver leaf on wood
18" diameter x 2" w
2017
Standing Still: The Trees - Rings
Cut tree branches
178" l x 98" d x 3" h
2013
Collection
Sawdust, wool felt, acrylic, and wood
36" w x 36" l x 18" h
2013
Storylines #1 (detail)
Relief print from pine log and ink drawing on paper
25" x 25"
2013
Storylines #2 (detail)
Relief print from pine log and ink drawing on paper
25"x25"
2013

Unchopping a Tree is a series of environmental artworks inspired in part by the W.S. Merwin prose poem Unchopping a Tree. In the writing, the author gives instructions for putting back together a tree that has been cut down, an impossible task. The written description becomes a metaphor for human intervention into the landscape, the ecology of natural systems, and our impact on the natural world. What we have taken away or altered can rarely, if ever, be replaced or repaired to its original state.