1999, death papers and other papers, burn, ink, string, photos, 88 x 13 inches.

Me as a Tree Being Upside-Down: This piece is the second in a series of trees inspired by Simon Schama.  He was my teacher and wrote Landscape and Memory, the most brilliant book that I’ve ever read.  In this book, he was totally into trees.  This also led me to Anselm Kiefer who I began to understand.   This piece was separately inspired by Francesca Woodman who was a tree in some of her photographs at MacDowell.  This is me as a tree being upside-down because:

1.) The trees at Yaddo looked like upside-down people with their torsos going into the ground and their legs reaching towards the sky. 2.) I do a lot of yoga and it is important to go upside-down all the time so as to air out your organs. My toes are on top. This piece was across from “My Sun” for a long time with the “Middle of the Road” (a floor piece) in between.  This was because in yoga, headstands are sun worshiping poses.  I burned this piece because it is made of death/wish papers, because of my sun, because of Simon Schama, and because bark looks charred.