MacLeish QR

Approximately 12’ x 15’ x 5’, paint, acrylic marker, wood, chrome plated steel, upcycled wood, aluminum and acrylic 

Zebra Trees and Boundary Lines: Hope Springs Imaginal grew out of a relationship between Leduc and a decomposing birch in Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in 2021. Three years later, Leduc encountered a rhyming “Zebra Tree” at MacLeish Field Station and has since witnessed the falling and ongoing decomposition of Zebra Trees across geographic designations. As the trees alter their states, they mentor Leduc with measured wisdom regarding scales of reliability, experiences of liminality, and black-and-white, linear constructs.

Visitors are welcome to embody a state of non-dual dynamism by walking on the logs, an echo of the piece’s positioning along the crest of two watersheds (and the orientation of all living entities). From the logs, framed, plein air artifacts of the artist’s acquaintance with four locations within MacLeish reach out and up physically and energetically. Their color, gesture, transparency, and reflection represent—and invite others into—playful moments of porosity and participation with and as an ever-expanding, relational whole.

To view Zebra Tree research documentation and ongoing artwork, please follow this link to “The Zebra Tree.”

For additional concepts behind the “plein air artifacts,” please follow this link to “Field Marks.”

An exploration from Dr. Michele Wick

To begin, we will take an account of your sensory and emotional intersection with the installation and forest as a whole.

Sensory accounting: 

• In the presence of Zebra Trees and Boundary Lines, record the sights, sounds, smells, and textures in the area around you. (“Recording” can be with thoughts, words, photos, drawings, etc.)

Emotional accounting: 

• What emotions do you feel in the presence of Zebra Trees and Boundary Lines?  If you’re having trouble naming your feelings, click here for a list. 

Please continue to the prompts next to each image below; we will return to the whole at the very end. However, should you prefer not to complete the exercise linearly, that is okay! You are welcome to start and stop wherever you prefer.

Sensory Mapping:

• Refer back to your initial sensory account as well as any additional sensory information you collected as you moved throughout the piece. On a piece of paper (any size), diagram the sensory information you noticed. (You may use any medium of your choice, e.g. pencil, paint, marker, pen, photography, etc.)

Emotional Mapping:

• Refer back to your initial emotional account as well as any additional emotional information you collected along the way. Consider adding these emotions to your sensory map. How will you notate them? 

Take a moment to reflect. Notice how your sensory experiences and emotions connect. Can you find any surprises?