Canada
1994
This work is inspired by the observation that human beings share a biological similarity with the world’s hardwoods in how they each utilize and protect themselves from the energy of the sun. Currently, this piece consists of a Canadian Maple structure, containing 26 different “leaves” made from selected hardwoods indigenous to regions between Canada and the Equator. The leaves are removable and audiences are at liberty to re-order the sequence.
“Biology demonstrates a botanical counterpart of the foregoing zoological Sun-utilizing and -filtering strategies for the Sun-intensity filtering strategies manifest in the Earth’s hardwoods. The most northerly are white oak, southward of which we come to the pink oak and light-yellow birch. As we go farther south, we see the pink pearl maple and gray ash, then the deep red-yellow southern pine, south of which occur the brown mahoganies and dark-grey teak, and farther south the dark-brown rosewoods, with the spectrum change terminating at the Equator in the black ebony.”
Fuller, R. Buckminster. 1981. Critical Path. St. Martin’s Press – New York.
