Illuminated (nearby) Tree
from the Lawrence Percolator’s exhibition, “Trees I Have Known,” 2009
In this collaborative project, participants were invited to share a memory of a tree by writing it within one of the illuminated branches projected onto the wall. By the end of the exhibition, the branches were completely filled with stories, while the actual tree (seen through the window above) had been cut down to make room for a new apartment building. A twelve-page zine documenting the project is available in my shop.
(Below are examples of writings incorporated into the Illuminated (nearby) Tree)
I would play hide – and – seek with my brother and then find the best most comfortable spot where I could see everyone and no one could see me, then forget I was in the middle of a game and just hang out for hours.
When I was about 8 my best friend and I would find dead birds around our backyards – so we buried the birds at the base of a tree and made little shrines and a cross and did farewell rituals for the little birds.
The orange tree that I grew from a seed that came from an orange I had @ Thanksgiving 1984 – I still have it.
I’m out on a limb. What a view. I think I’ll climb down some – that’s a little more stable but I can’t see as much.
In Hong Kong the trees have vines that drop into the streets. These trees can get so large they are their own islands in the rivers in southern China – Fred Yung from Hong Kong.
I used to hide small items in a knot-hole for the neighbor children. Wait, that was Boo Radley.
Trees are pretty cool, but so is paper.
Lone Star Lake – August 1983 – lying on my back, peaking on LSD, looking up through shimmering leaves.
I’m so tall I feel like a tree. People don’t cut me down.
