(nash metropolitain)

Forest One: What Made Me, Here?

 “Forest I” is a cedar bark, plastic strapping, and wool wrapped-twined and plaited full-size automobile (1956 Nash Metropolitan) with bark salvaged from urban forests clear cut for condominium developments.

Spirits, shown by flowers and animals woven in wool, considers wrapped bottles, wrapped bodies,  as its ancestral line.  Forest I speaks of colonization, urban sprawl, the concept of trash (the tree, the car, and what comes back again).

Does one have the sorrow of the clearcut, or the thrill of progress?
Where is the feeling of loss, of never being able to experience a true wilderness –
or is it the fear of the wilderness, that prevails?

Remediating an urban landscape that came from the forest, still smelling of bark, roots, and soil, in Forest I, happens through the act of salvage.   Bark, considered trash to construction crews, is transformed here into a basketry car.  Thinking back to the basketry covered glass bottles, Forest I considers and speaks to the several waves of colonialism upon aboriginal peoples.