I had the honour of being asked for a second time to be the Sculptor in Residence at Sculpture in the Gardens held in the Wollongong Botanic Gardens. translucence: grief tells you what you love is chapter 2 of a project begun in 2021 when I was first Sculptor in Residence. That project was called ghost trees and it acknowledged the grief that we experienced as a consequence of the East Coast 2020 fires.
In 2021 we stitched ribbon torn from old white sheets with messages declaring what counts: frogs count, trees count, cicadas count… (all the things that do not get counted on the spreadsheet that runs our world). See video of the ghost tree project HERE
After the brutality of those fires we thought that the living green world that had been burnt would never come back, but Nature has regreened those places — her natural longing is to restore life, and she has the capacity to do so, if we step back. This resurgence of green life is wild and heart filling, and it reminds us of nature’s innate capacity.
In translucence: grief tells you what you love I invited visitors to contribute to growing the sculpture, a forest of 3.5 metre tall wrapped ‘reeds’, by stitching ribbons in vibrant green to celebrate the living green world — to declare our love for the earth and all the beings who call this place home — love letter to the world: frog love, tree love, cicada love…