Out side my studio La Pedrera (the stone quarry) are a number of large leaved lime trees or Tilia platyphyllos of the Malvaceae family. Throughout the years they have accompanied me, silent witnesses to my activities. I have a relationship to them, I have watched them as they have grown and matured. Rooted in the solid rock of the stone quarry, I don-t know how their roots penetrate the hard ground, I imagine fine tendrils seeking out tight fissures in the rock. In the summer, under their densely leaved branches, the bright green leaves are heavy with sap and there it is surprisingly cool. The creation of a leaf mantle woven from their leaves opens the story.
The act of assembling and making it confers meaning upon it and it is carried like a shield. Totemic it conceals my body. This loose leaf shaped cloak attests to unseen power, light-energy and processes of transformation that arise in the tree, the leaves which are intimately related to photosynthesis, networks and circulatory systems are its medium.
The metaphorical and physical weaving of this semi transparent mantle of pale green leaves, shields me as the canopy layer does the forest. By the nature of its material the cloak is destined to break down and fall apart, by the hour it dries and becomes less malleable, more fragile until it crumbles and breaks down and joins the action taking place underground revealing a secret, forgotten and unrecognised mutualistic mycorrhizal network. From science to symbol, chemical process to communication, the life cycle is as complex and magical as the trees’ intense inner life and its development that follows its own laws.
Filmed in Location in Spain and edited by Jacqui Devenney Reed
