I'm currently working on a piece in response to Art House Co-op's Letters To Home project. They've asked artists to write a letter to their childhood home. It's a hard task to think back to the home that witnessed your evolution to adulthood. You're confronted with all the secrets those walls hold - that secret crush, the mean things you said when no one was listening, a stolen dram followed by obsessive teeth brushing to avoid getting caught. It's amazing to think we survive the journey and that our loved ones, well, still love us.
Most of my memories return to the outdoors - the pussy willow tree that was cut down when I was 4 (I was devastated and briefly became the Lorax), the cherry tree I would climb time and time again in search of the next gift it would create for me, the apple trees that I watched grow to bear fruit. You sense a pattern? Yes, most of all, my home was not my house at all. It was in the trees, and the woods surrounding the housing development I grew up in.
Stay tuned for the story of how my love affair with trees started. It's due on the 15th!
