The Poem

This is what I wrote last year about what inspired the design and the poem.

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“I am drawn to the arboretum’s small, enveloping clearings in the trees and feel nurtured by them. Many of the individual trees, themselves, seem delicate and vulnerable. These feelings recall my recent entry into motherhood, my work for global sustainability and my increasing awareness of global warming and I see parallels in my instinct to nurture at various scales. I appreciate the trees - how each fragile one, in its ‘breathing,’ continually works to maintain our atmosphere. I see the mutual nurturing as a circle - where we are both a ‘child of’ as well as a ‘parent of’ the earth.”

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I'd also been singing a lot of lullaby songs, which I think affected the rhythm of it. I sometimes sang this poem to my boys to try it out to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," or "All the Pretty Little Horses."

Background

This art installation was first designed and built as a winning entry in the juried exhibition for a seasonal show at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum’s Art-To-Amaze Walk on display from June 16, 2007 to September 30, 2007.

(Image: Board submitted for the Arboretum Competition)

The idea to rebuild and adapt it for St. Louis Park came from a St. Louis Park resident that was visiting the sculpture and was sad to see that it was only going to be available until September. She suggested that it be rebuilt in St. Louis Park under the public art grant program there. The public art program’s focus on community engagement sparked new ideas for the adaptation, and the community environmental education and appreciation mission of the Westwood Hills Nature Center in St. Louis Park made it the obvious choice for a new home.