Last night we burned the lady in the tree. She'd been up there for nine years and had finally decomposed into oblivion. But that's the nature of what artists refer to as a process piece. Observing the effects of time and environment upon someones vision. The lady was a figurative sculpture made of vine maple branches, she was about fifteen feet from hand to outstretched hand and eight foot from the waist to the top of her head. The hoop skirt she originally sat on had rotted away which was how I got her in the first place. I'd moved to Portland ten years ago and had found my way into the community by volunteering my construction skill to various art venues. I did a couple of weeks tuning up Oregon Country Fair and as a reward they let me keep the top of what was once the outdoor library. Nicodemus McDonald, by the way, was the sculptor that had built the whimsical structure that became part of my life.
Our little alcove of Portland used to be so obscure that the only people that make it to our street were surely, already lost. There was a vacant lot across the street from our house that runs the length of the sound wall along Going street. During my first year here the city only came by twice to cut back weeds. The lot was well populated with fruit trees that had stood in the back yards of the houses that were bulldozed to widen Going back in the early seventies. At the east end there was apple tree, the largest I've ever seen. Its branches hung down to the ground encircling the trunk and creating a sort of chapel of shadows. My wife, Marci and I walked our old dog down there every day so we started a project to trim the branches back and bring it some love. It wasn't long after that that I acquired the lady. She was sitting on the ground in a back stage parking area looking a little forlorn. The caretaker I worked for was surprised I'd shown an interest. He was going to add it to a bonfire one night and would already have but the lady was awkward and weighed close to three hundred pounds. I rented a flat bed and used a forklift to load her up the next day. I had my idea, you see, of installing her in the giant apple tree. I got some beams and a block and tackle from a friend and set up a rig to pull her up into the major branches. Then we slowly lowered her into the crux, maneuvering her arms between the branching trunks. She looked majestic and completely in her element.
Our neighbors loved the piece and the effort we made to turn our forgotten little vacant lot into something more. Over the next year we expanded our curatorial efforts by installing a metal sculpture, by my friend Dan Dos Man, at the other end of the lot and mowing a pathway through the overgrown grass to connect them. We didn't ask permission to do these things because it seemed apparent that nobody cared, until I got a knock on the door one day. The woman introduced herself, Darcy Cronin from the Water Bureau. She said that she really liked what we were doing with their land. I waited for the shoe to drop, it didn't! She suggested that if we brought together neighborhood support the Bureau had an infrastructure budget to support the project as a "Hydro Park". They own a lot of little pieces of Portland and were developing these little plots with the idea of creating neighborhood green spaces, I love this town! A unifying plan was developed and a committee appointed that has since overseen the selection and installation of various artists work which rotates new pieces in on a regular basis.
Last nights fire brought the opening act of our efforts to a close. The Pittman Addition Hydro Park is a hidden gem made possible by the people that showed up and took an interest, a community.
