Quercus: The Constant Oak / Northern Spark 2017
Photographs and painted mylar with twenty oaks from the collection of the College of Biological Sciences Conservatory
2017
Archival Inkjet Print
60 x 40 inches
2017
Installation (Acrylic on Plastic, wood stands, twelve Oak trees, three Archival Inkjet Prints, plastic sheeting)
2017
This temporary installation at Twin Cities Public Television for Northern Spark 2017 is a tribute to the integral role that Oaks play in the Midwestern landscape as a keystone species that stores carbon and filters pollutants out of the air. It is also a tribute to the American landscape painter Charles Burchfield who, as his life slipped away, watched a single oak leaf twirl in the winter wind. The leaf inspired one of his last paintings, The Constant Leaf (1960) and his wife Bertha eventually framed the leaf as a tribute to his tenacity. I started this project by scanning one leaf from all 52 species of Oaks housed in the College of Biological Sciences Conservatory.