Process Images

Curious About the Process and the Details?

Read about climbing an old-growth tree, making cookies for wood anatomy slides, and how the beauty of graphs found its way into each panel.

Thank You! I couldn’t have done it without your help

My sincerest thanks goes to everyone who helped me make this project including:

Kate Ali, Oregon Arts Commission’s project manager who helped guide me through the process of creating and managing a Percent for Art public art project. Without her I would have been lost.

Oregon State University’s Percent for Art Forest Science Complex committee whose members made suggestions that strengthened the concept of Listening to the Forest.

Fred Swanson, a retired geomorphologist for the U.S. Forest Service who has worked at the Andrews Forest for decades, helped me choose the tree species for this project, connected me with people to help along the way, and tagged trees in the forest with me to make “cookies” for wood anatomy slides.

Barb Lachenbruch invited me into her lab at Oregon State University and handed me a chisel and mallet to start turning cookies into sections for microscopic slides. Barb taught me about wood anatomy and sent me home with many books to educate myself. She also enlisted the help of Alan Crivellaro at Cambridge University to help with the creation of exceptional wood anatomy slides.

Alan Crivellaro took our chunks of wood and created the extraordinary slides that were used to make the composition of each panel.

Julia Jones, Professor of Geography in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University prepared the data sets and graphs used for the bottom edge of each panel from the data collected at the Discovery Tree the day of each of my climbs and the 2 days prior and after the climbs. Julia helped me see the patterns and relationships of the forest processes.

Adam Sibley, a graduate student at Oregon’s State University College of Forestry’s department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, patiently taught me how to climb tall trees. We climbed the Discovery Tree together 4 1/2 times and had fascinating conversations perched 50 meters up in the forest canopy. Adam also lent an extra set of hands as we installed the panels in Peavy Hall.

Charles Mason of Boulder Works in Longmont, Colorado saved my sanity and this project when he picked up the labor intensive job of laser cutting panels after the local manufacturer stopped working on them at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

My parents, Jerry and Kathy Wilson, not only provided endless encouragement, but also jumped in to help with the preparation of the panels in Colorado after Charles finished cutting.

Tim Wilson-Haley, my incredible project manager, partner and husband, was with me every step of the way and insured that this project would not only be completed, but exceptional. I have no words to express my gratitude for all the hands on help, advice, encouragement, dinner preparation, additional studio creation, rope and ladder work… the list goes on and on. And amazingly, after all we went though to see this project come to completion, he is willing and excited to help work with me on the next one.

Thank you to everyone else for your words of encouragement and patience as I navigated my way through this. Your kindness helped to carry me though dark and frustrating times.