chris albert: April 2014

As it happens, spheroid forms nestled in the heart of Crotch became a meme for the first three months of this year. But whereas Matt Stolle's Concretion was a cleaving alien forcewhitch lodged itself in the crux of the tree and Lorrie Fredette's Balls became the very stuff(ing) within the tree, ready to burst forth, the balls of orange ice in the frozen orbs of Jean Brennan's and Zach Rodgers' Thaw are at once of and from outside the tree. In a move that flips arboreal physiology on it's head, these juicy colored "fruits" release their essence back into the treee. Thaw is gift of nourishment.

Given long lived winter, Thaw lived in tact for a week in early March. The piece transformed over the course of a warmer weekend, disappearing into the core of the tree, one drip at a time.

Wool fibers rubbed into the bark of the tree in the manner of what might be left behind from rutting ruminants constituted another piece component. Together the elements of the piece and the act of installing their work (with shin deep snow still on the ground, much of which was, itself, rubbed into the recesses of bark) speaks to the seasonal cycles and all the changes commensurate with that cycle.