Fence Project/Tree Growing Through a Fence

2024

Newsprint, Rotting Wood. 6ft x 4ft.

The wheat pasting was done the evening before my second round of chemotherapy last April. I was feeling scared about my degrading energy levels and how it would impact my capabilities to make work. I planned this piece on a rotting section of the fence and that I would document the erosion-process during the following five rounds of chemo. The intent was to have a visual representation of how my body was doing. Something I could point to when someone would ask “How are you feeling?”

The piece made it through the next round until, unannounced to the household, our landlord put in a work order to install a new fence in the backyard, and the workers on the project determined that my piece was trash. (A scathing review!) They disassembled and threw it away. I was quite upset.

What was salvageable were the individual sections that Haley helped me bring out of the pile of rubbish in the basement. For the following rounds of treatment and the remission period, the planks of wheat-pasted wood lived underneath the stairs, waiting for me to do something about them. Dust began to accumulate and spiders made their homes. It’s only been recently, and since the recovery of my energy levels, that I pieced it back together for a final photoshoot and an ultimate bonfire.