One massive maple, 42 artists’ creations
Tree that had to be felled becomes $175,000 worth of art projects
The environment becomes art this weekend as 42 artists unveil their creations sourced from a maple tree that once stood 27 metres tall.
The one Tree Exhibit is being produced by Victoria’s Robert Bateman Centre in tandem with Live Edge Design, a Duncan company that makes furniture from reclaimed wood. The idea was brought to the centre by Live Edge Design founder John Lore, who found an enthusiastic ear for his idea in Aimee Ippersiel, managing director of the Robert Bateman Centre.
“This was a true collaboration,” Ippersiel said. “We’ve been partners in developing it and choosing the artists and curating the show.”
The exhibit, which opens Saturday and runs until Jan. 15, is the culmination of a year’s worth of planning and effort. When Lore received word that a massive maple tree would be coming down in the Cowichan Valley, a call for submissions went out to artists, each of whom submitted proposals. In the end, the majority of participating artists are from Vancouver Island, with artists from Nova Scotia and Ontario also on board.
“We were looking for a diversity of objects — we didn’t want everybody to do the same thing,” Ippersiel said. “There’s a complexity to what we’re trying to do here. We’re trying to express a message of how important nature is to us, and we do it through art.”
The “swing tree,” as it was named by the Cowichan Valley family on whose property it stood for more than a century, was felled in October 2014 because it was rotting and posed a danger to the family living in a nearby house.
The tree was filled with spalt, a fungus that’s bad for trees, but good for the eye-popping artistic creations that sprang from it.
“There is a past, present, future angle to this,” Ippersiel said. “The tree had lived for over 100 years, and the family that lived there did so for three generations. There’s all these historic photos of them and the tree on their property, swinging from the tree.
“Where that wood would usually be mulched, this one is being turned into $175,000 worth of art.”
More than 4,000 hours of work went into creating these wood designs, ranging from spoons, bowls, chairs and lamps to musical instruments such as violins, mandolins, flutes and guitars. One of the exhibit’s showstopping pieces, Lore’s dining-room suite with eight chairs, was put on display in September by LiveEdge, which took it to B.C. home shows.
Though the suite is priced at $35,000, the majority of items at the oneTree exhibit are in the $3,000 range, and some start at $95, Ippersiel said.
This is the first exhibit not to feature Bateman’s art since the centre moved in 2013 to the Steamship Terminal at the Inner Harbour. It does, however, feature a light-box sculpture created by his son, John Bateman, a Salt Spring Island woodworker. Ippersiel felt oneTree aligned with the Robert Bateman Centre’s mandate to raise awareness about the importance and value of nature.
“The part of the exhibit that sits with our mandate is looking at what a broadleaf maple is and the unique characteristics of that.”