Nature Works 2

As part of my Media Blend class I am creating non-permanent works of art outdoors in the landscape. This is my second concept made from materials in my own backyard. First, let me say I DETEST sweet gum balls. To me they resemble a Medieval weapon, but I have an abundance of them so I tried to overcome my prejudice. On a positive note they do tend to knit together like velcro.

We also have a group of felonious squirrels in our yard who have made of with countless amounts of bird seed and two (2!) suet feeders that are nowhere to be found. So part of this experiment was to see if the squirrels would like to remove parts of the "installation."

There is a small pine seedling growing in the oak leaf litter so on the morning of February 21st I used that as the central point for the inner circle of a medicine wheel. The two concentric circles are made from sweet gum balls with pine cones pointing to the four gate directions: north, south, east and west. I thought the assemblage stood out in the landscape, but when we were walking around the backyard with our friends and their dog it went completely unnoticed. I am aiming for a subtle, quiet Aha, so I wasn't prepared for invisible. Especially not from a dog who had sniffed every possible corner of the yard and house!

On February 23rd I checked and nothing had moved, those nice sweet gum balls really hold tight to each other. Over the weekend we had wild, windy weather and a bit of rain so I checked it again and a few leaves had fallen on top of the assemblage and some of the sweet gum balls had been moved. Squirrels or Mother Nature? Hard to tell, although it looks like there could be a an entry and exit point from squireels chasing each other. I'll keep monitoring the slow march to obliteration or whatever comes next.