The intent of these projects is to have the viewer confront a dead tree as tangible evidence of its demise and symbolic of the sacrifice of the trees to global, urban/technological imperatives.

Viriditas comes from viridian green.  The word viriditas was coined by Hildegard von Bingen, an abbess who lived in Bavaria, Germany in the 11th century.  For her it was a word that defined the green state of new life.  She referred to viriditas as the green sweat blanketing our planet.

 

Displacement Viriditas was installed on the grounds of the Art Gallery of Peterborough, Canada.  The cedar tree used in the project came from a site where trees were being removed for development.  During the three-year period that the project was up, a family of ducks nested in the root system.

 

Compromiso Viriditas was installed at the Museo Arte Contemporanio, Sophia Imber, Caracas, Venezuela.  The tree for the project came from a mountaintop outside of Caracas and was dying beside a nuclear reactor.  I had it removed from the ground and mounted in the sculpture garden of the museum.

 

Denied Viriditas was installed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.  The two Y shaped steel structures cradle the single tree lofted above the ground as a single specimen or artifact for perusal.  The tree for Denied Viriditas is a Willow oak, a tree species living at its northern most limit.