Cameron

I spent this last week working on a really interesting assignment for my class Studio Projects: Land and Sky. We were challenged to make multiple plaster casts of an object and then install it into a landscape to evoke an interesting relationship between the two. I’ve always been interested in installation art, and I was really excited to work on this project. Evergreen’s campus also provided lots of opportunities for a site, and I fell in love with the one I chose to work in. Amazingly enough it was a place on campus that I’ve never been to before.

I was struck by the white trunks of some dead cedar trees and I was drawn this incredible stump that felt like an altar. I chose to cast a section of a branch I found at the site, and as I cast them, I set a steel wire in the base so that they could be stuck into the ground and stand up. When I led my class to it, I gave them all a stick that I collected form the site, and I asked that they leave it somewhere on their journey. That way, they would have a piece of the landscape to take with them on the trail, and since many people left their sticks at the altar stump, the piece became an interactive and shared experience.

Anyways, here are some pictures and my artist statement:

Artist Statement:

With its back turned to the well-known path and the towering buildings, an ancient ghost sits and quietly stares into the woods. It is visited by the sunrise and birds and leaves and moss, but rarely humans. Even though it is in plain view from the buildings, it just looks like a normal stump from there. But when you wander past the pavement and the garden and into the forest, careful not to step on any little mushrooms, you can stand face to face with the ghost stump, which opens up like and altar, letting you know you are in a special place. Looking around, you realize you have in fact entered an entirely different world, a secret room that is only noticeable once you are inside it. It is calm, private, and still, yet only a few feet away from the busy cement world. From here you can sense life and death slowly chasing each other in circles. How did you end up here? You followed a trail of small ghostly statues, barely visible except to those who know treasure lies just off the beaten path, and their story is what you make of it.

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