Lodged

Lodged is a living sculpture that presents the trunk and root mass of a young White Ash tree that died next to a stream in Accord, NY. The tree was removed from the forest and rearticulated to replicate the low angle at which it was suspended against a neighboring tree. Half of the trunk was carbonized in a charcoal retort.

The first iteration was featured in the show “Making” at the Muroff-Kotler Gallery at SUNY Ulster in 2024. In this version, the charred segments of the log were carefully reassembled atop their matching halves.

In order to fit the gallery space, we omitted two entire log segments and reduced the length of a third.

Three steel trusses supported the logs’ weight. The gallery was bisected by the tree, which offered passage beneath its raised end.

In the summer of 2025, Lodged was installed onsite at the Hudson Valley Seed Company in Accord. This new iteration presents the full length of the fallen tree before its first split; over 50 feet. Two more trusses were constructed to stabilize the trunk.

The charcoal has been ground into biochar, a small portion of which occupies a narrow channel running the entire length of the tree. When inoculated with soil microbes this matrix becomes incredibly fertile.

The wood in this sculpture will decompose as meadow plantings from the Hudson Valley Seed Company are nurtured inside of it. We see Lodged as a nurse log, supporting new growth in the midst of collapse.