Etymology of Trees and the Language of Grief
2010
The Etymology of Trees
Imagine walking though a grove of trees. Something glints, catching the sun. In the places where the branch is broken, it has been bandaged with gold leaf. You look more closely, and see words burned into a fallen branch.
Through the mechanism of research into the etymology of names of trees, this project examines the way forests and trees have become embedded metaphors in our language and thought and traces words about trees, through their cultural and linguistic echoes. Windfallen branches were inscribed via pyrography with the etymological information. The places where the branches are scarred or broken were bandaged with gold leaf, and then they were replaced in the forest.