The above works are visual investigations into what started as a relationship with a decomposing birch (“The Zebra Tree”) in Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in 2021. As I developed this relationship over several years, I encountered a rhyming “Zebra Tree” at MacLeish Field Station in 2024. Over multiple visitations, I have now witnessed continued decomposition and—in some cases, felling—of many “Zebra Trees.” Through research, contemplation, and participation, these “Zebra Trees” have become ontological guides, offering measured wisdom on subjects such as scales of reliability, degrees of change, and the construct of the binary. As the Zebra Trees alter their states, they mentor my experience of the liminal, speculations on decomposition, and continued embrace of my “ecological function” within my own “forest community.”
