Seven Conversations with Seven Trees: the Making of an Art Installation
My year-long project with Bernheim Arboretum
An Artist Residency
When I arrived at Bernheim Forest and Arboretum for my artist residency in September 2024, I expected to find inspiration in the beauty of the landscape. Bernheim, located just south of Louisville, is the largest privately owned forest dedicated to education and conservation in the United States. Spanning over 16,000 acres (600 acres of arboretum and the rest wild forest), it was established in 1929 by Isaac W. Bernheim, a German immigrant and distiller who purchased degraded farmland with the intent of restoring it to native forest. Today it is owned and managed by the Bernheim Foundation, and includes protected natural areas, sustainably managed woodlands, an arboretum with curated plant collections, over 40 miles of trails, and lots of public art.
When I arrived for my seven-week stay, I knew I would be eco-printing on cotton rag paper with leaves from Bernheim’s trees, stitching into the paper, and mounting it onto foraged vine armatures. I expected my subject matter to continue the exploration of chronic illness that I had been pursuing for the previous few years. What I didn’t expect was how deeply personal my encounters with the trees would become, and how my attention would turn from the grief of chronic illness to the role trees play in making us healthier.
After I had familiarized myself with the grounds, I began to collect leaves for eco-printing. It was autumn and leaves were freely falling from most of the trees. Though no collecting of any kind is allowed at Bernheim, I was given special permission to collect fallen leaves for my project. I assumed I would be most interested in the wild native forest, but, while I enjoyed hiking the forested trails, I was drawn instead to the arboretum section, a living library of trees, spaced intentionally across the landscape, labeled with their names in both English and Latin. I was interested in featuring trees native to Kentucky in my project, and as I wandered the arboretum each day, I began to find favorite trees. Not favorite tree species, which I already had – sassafras and sycamore - but favorite individual trees.
At this point, I realized I would do something a bit different with this project. In the past, when eco-printing, I would walk into my own woods and gather handfuls of fallen leaves. These were a mixture of species, and I had no way of knowing which specific oak leaves fell from which specific oak trees once they were on the ground. Here, with the trees spaced across the landscape the way they were, and the grounds tended the way they were, leaves I gathered felt like gifts from specific trees I had come to recognize.
The artists in residence at Bernheim have the use of a lovely lakeside studio. I set up my sewing machine inside the studio, and I created a space on the studio patio where I could eco-print onto papers. There were several experiments I needed to conduct before I started the project – I was using cotton rag paper for the first time (in the past I had used leftover wood pulp paper from bookbinding). That meant I might need to experiment with mordants and make sure I could get good results with my method of steaming the paper and leaves.
For my first experiments, I chose a few trees that were right next to the studio – a Japanese zelkova tree and a whitebark magnolia. These were not native to Kentucky, so I knew they wouldn’t end up in my final project, but they were close by and would serve to verify my eco-printing process was set up properly. The final papers bore nice prints, with subtle variations in tone and texture. I could move on to my project!
At the same time, I spent my evenings reading about forests and trees. I read Suzanne Simard’s Finding the Mother Tree, where she discusses the way trees are all connected to each other and perhaps even care for each other through the “wood-wide web” of mycelial networks. I read Forest Bathing by Dr. Qing Li, a Japanese physician and researcher, whose research shows that spending time among trees can reduce cortisol levels, lower blood pressure, calm anxiety, and even increase the number and activity of natural killer (NK) cells – part of our immune systems.
That discovery moved me. It suggested that being in the presence of trees doesn’t just make us feel better—it actually changes the chemistry of our bodies. We are healthier when we are connected to the forest. I began sketching simple cell forms in my notebook—circles within circles, linked and clustered—and I saw how these could become metaphors for the networks of exchange and care that link us with the more-than-human world.
My recent work had included mounting eco-printed papers onto armatures made from foraged invasive vines to make sculptures. I got permission to remove invasive honeysuckle from around the cabin where I was staying and formed them into cell-like structures based on the sketches I had made in my notebook.
I decided to make a series of these cellular structures, each one based on one particular tree I had come to know in the arboretum. I chose about 20 native trees, collected their fallen leaves, and eco-printed papers with them.
Parallel to this, I was having conversations with the staff at Bernheim, trying to decide where my final artwork might be installed. Indoor locations were limited, and it seemed appropriate to me that artwork made in collaboration with trees should be outside among trees, so I considered what it would mean to install my stitched paper artwork outdoors. Would it hold up to the weather? Cotton rag paper is pretty durable, and if I layered some buckram fabric between two layers of paper, the result was a pretty sturdy construction. I coated the papers with Renaissance Wax to render some water resistance. One interesting thing about Bernheim is that they don’t expect their art installations to last forever – they intend each piece to be installed from 2 to 5 years, and they’re very open to experimenting. I scouted the arboretum for semi-protected spots where the artwork would fit, and quickly settled on a small, empty pavilion. I especially liked the spot because it was near to the Sensory Garden and not far from the Meditation Trail. It felt like a good fit.
Based on the size of the pavilion, I needed a total of seven cellular structures. I made seven cell-shaped armatures from foraged vines. And I chose seven trees, based on several criteria: they had to be native trees, I wanted them drawn from across the whole arboretum, and they needed to have made successful eco-prints on the cotton rag paper.
After I chose the trees, I began spending time with each one, sitting near them to journal, taking photographs of their trunks, their leaves, their nuts and seeds, and any moss, lichen and mushrooms growing on them.
Then, using only the eco-printed papers made from the first tree I chose – an American hornbeam – I cut the paper to fit the open sections of a vine armature. I layered each piece with buckram and another layer of cotton rag paper, then machine quilted the layers together, following the marks eco-printing made on the paper.
I hand embroidered into the paper, translating what I had observed about the hornbeam tree into stitches. The process was slow, meditative, embodied.
Finally, I attached the stitched paper pieces into the vine framework using waxed linen thread and a modified bookbinding stitch. The gesture of stitching felt like suturing, like an act of repair. Each connection was deliberate, holding together fragments of vine and paper, structure and skin.
The American hornbeam was the only cell structure I finished on-site during my residency, but I had a year to complete the rest of the project at home.
While I was at Bernheim, I visited each of the other six trees multiple times, journaling under their canopies, photographing the bark and lichen and mosses, watching them change with the approach of autumn. When I returned home, I continued working on the project, drawing on all the material I had documented in my project journal. The seven cell structures emerged—seven conversations with seven trees in the arboretum.
1. American Hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana)
This tree grows on the Two Ponds Loop Trail, on the edge of Olmstead Pond. Sometimes called “musclewood,” I was drawn to the hornbeam’s sinewy trunk, its wood dense and strong. I’ve never found a hornbeam tree in my own woods, but it is similar to the ironwood trees I’m used to.
This is the first tree I chose for the project, so I watched it for a long time. I watched the leaves turn from green to yellow, to yellow-orange, to orange. I watched the leaves fall en masse after a storm, and small bonnet mushrooms crop up on the ground around its base and on the lower trunk, among mosses.
In this piece, my stitching mimicked the lush moss and lichen that grew on its trunk, the circular forms of the knots that were evidence of branches that had fallen or been cut from its trunk, and the yellows and oranges of its autumn leaves.
2. American Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis)
This sycamore is my favorite in the arboretum —a massive, pale sentinel beside Lake Nevin, its bark peeling in irregular sheets. The tree reaches as far horizontally as it does vertically, and standing under its lateral branches that reach 40 feet in every direction is like standing under a grand roof of leaves.
The wind through the leaves makes a pleasant rustling sound, akin to flowing water. As summer was turning toward fall, the leaves began to turn a golden yellow, giving a lovely impression of stained glass.
My embroidery mimicked the geometry of the Sycamore’s seed balls, the bright colors of its spring flowers, and even the colors and textures of a sycamore tussock moth caterpillar I saw climbing the tree’s trunk.
3. Pin Oak (Quercus palustris)
This pin oak stands at the edge of a clearing, by a parking lot, on a rise overlooking the Quiet Garden and Lake Nevin. It is the oldest living accessioned tree in the arboretum, planted even before the first head horticulturist came to work at Bernheim, back in the 1950s.
It’s a massive tree, with gently curved branches stretching horizontally. I often parked my car in its shade.
I first noticed the tree after the remnants of Hurricane Helene came through – the next day several branches with groups of perfect leaves were on the ground beneath it. The leaves made lovely marks on the cotton rag paper.
While sitting underneath the pin oak, I found acorns that had fallen from its branches, and bird’s nest fungi growing in its shade, and fallen branch loaded with rosette lichen. Slowly, during the time I was at Bernheim, the leaves turned a reddish-orange. I tried to capture all of these things with my embroidery.
4. Red Maple (Acer rubrum)
This tree is pretty much the same age I am – it was planted as a 2” sapling in 1969. It grows near the entrance to the Meditation Trail. There is a bench a few feet from the tree, where I sat in the shade and journaled. It’s one of the most peaceful spots in the arboretum.
The lowest branches are just high enough that I can’t reach them, but during the remnants of Hurricane Helene, several large branches fell from the tree, covered in amazing crust mushrooms and lichen. The ground around the tree was covered in maple leaves, bright red and yellow, the same color as the maple flowers in the spring.
My embroidery captures the flowers, the fungus, the lichen, and the mottled color of the leaves.
5. Pawpaw (Asimina triloba)
This Pawpaw tree is younger – planted in 2005, and only about 20 feet tall. It grows near the Visitor Center parking lot, near eight towering eastern white pines, along the edge of a wild area.
For a small tree, the leaves are large, and droop downward. They turn yellow and brown before falling. Its flowers appear in early spring like small maroon lanterns. I might have chosen this tree because on this residency, I ate my first pawpaw fruit—sweet and custard-like.
My embroidery captured the interesting architecture of the flowers, the lichen on its bark, and the holes in and the structure of the autumn leaves when I held them up to the sunlight.
6. Shellbark Hickory (Carya laciniosa)
The shellbark hickory, tall and stately, grows in a picnic area within sight of the pavilion where the final artwork is installed. Its bark peels away in long, vertical strips—textured and deeply furrowed.
I was not familiar with shellbark hickory, so I thought at first it was a shagbark hickory, which grows abundantly in my own woods. Until the hickory nuts fell – the nuts from this tree are the largest I’d ever seen, and are responsible for the tree’s other common name, king nut hickory.
The leaves made beautiful yellow prints on the paper. The embroidery captures the hickory nuts, the yellow of the autumn leaves, moss and lichen I found on branches downed in the storm, and the gorgeous vascular patterns of the leaves when help up to the sunlight.
7. Tuliptree (Liriodendron tulipifera)
The tuliptree—sometimes called tulip poplar, though it is not a poplar but a relative of magnolia—is among the tallest of eastern hardwoods, lifting its straight trunk toward the canopy. Its uniquely shaped leaves printed on the paper in browns and grays. The tuliptree is the state tree of both Kentucky and Indiana. There is a group of them that grow along the Sun and Shade Loop, near where the trail curves from the parking lot towards the Mama Loumari Forest Giant sculpture.
I was attracted to this tuliptree in particular because of a prominent wound running down its trunk. Horticulturist Hannah Hunt informed me that the tree had been struck by lightning several years ago, and it wasn’t clear whether it would survive in the long-term.
Hurricane Helene’s remnants brought down several branches, which were covered in lichen and moss and mushrooms, and some with seed pods still attached. All of these inspired the embroidery on the cell structure, as did the springtime flowers of the tuliptree, in fluorescent orange and green, which inspire its name.
Health/Care Network
This November, I finally brought all seven structures together for installation, suspending them and connecting them to each other with “vines” made from covered and twisted metal wire.
Together, these seven forms—sycamore, pawpaw, red maple, shellbark hickory, tuliptree, pin oak, and hornbeam—hang in the pavilion like a suspended forest. Each one distinct, yet subtly linked to the others by vine-like cords, echoing the underground networks through which trees communicate and share sustenance. They move together in the wind.
Installed together, the work became Health/Care Network—a meditation on mutuality and resilience, both a portrait series and a map of interdependence. It asks what happens when we acknowledge our kinship with trees—not metaphorically, but biologically and spiritually. The cells of our bodies and the cells of trees both respire, exchange, and communicate. We are not separate from nature; we are an extension of it. When we care for trees, we care for ourselves. When we restore damaged ecosystems, we participate in our own healing.
Working on Health/Care Network taught me that every act of making is also an act of attention. To create something with care is to participate in a cycle of reciprocity that mirrors what happens in the forest. The trees gave their leaves, the vines their structure, the process its quiet lessons. In return, I offered my time, my attention, my willingness to learn.
When the installation was complete, I stood near the pavilion and watched the suspended forms move gently in the breeze. From this spot, I could actually see two of the seven trees – the shellbark hickory and the red maple - that had collaborated in the artwork.
In that moment, I felt the truth of Dr. Li’s research—not just as data, but as experience. Being among the trees, being in conversation with their materials, had changed me. I had entered into a network of health and care that extended beyond the boundaries of my own body. I had turned a corner, from making artwork about the grief and loss of illness, to the hope of finding healing and a new way of being in relationship to the woods.
You can see more of my artwork on my website.
Further Reading:
Qing Li, Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness (New York: Viking, 2018).
Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest (New York: Knopf, 2021).
Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate (Greystone Books, 2016).
David George Haskell, The Songs of Trees: Stories from Nature’s Great Connectors (Viking, 2017).
I love everything you write and your art. I work in a totally different space with textile art, but your work inspires me so much that I had to tell you. You’re truly a talented soul and so generous with your posts. Thank you so much.
Thank you, i really enjoyed this beautiful newsletter. Stunningly gorgeous pics and words. Meditative