During a workshop with the Great Lakes Land Lab at the Cloquet Forestry Center, the first drawings in the Tree Acquaintances series were created by suspending a marker from trees and letting the movement of a branch in the wind create the marks.

Four specific trees were selected that were living on the edges of the forestry test plots - so they had grown despite management strategies, were on the edges between plots, or were in areas not commonly studied (like the bog ecosystem). I spent a morning getting to know each tree, through sketching a drawing, creating a rubbing that preserved the tree’s scent, and setting up these tree/wind drawing experiments.

During the summer of 2020, I spent time drawing with trees throughout the Southwestern and Western US near where we camped each night.