Psalm Petals

Tree textwork is a genre between installation and poetry.

Materials:

cherry tree, poems in pencil on watercolor paper with cow blood, hemp string

On June 20th 2020 the work was installed in Grimmett Park and was completed at the time of the summer solstice.

The last psalm petal was strung up in the solstice cherry tree on June 20th 2020 at 2:44 pm PDT.

Psalm Petals is a inter-medial depiction of my metaphorical artist’s journey to the desert. Prayers to the Egyptian desert god Set are written as poetry on cut-out paper leaves and suspended from the branches of the cherry tree in Grimmett Park, Vancouver.

In Ancient Egypt during the New Kingdom, (first millennium B.C.) Seth was a powerful energy associated with chaos, storms, the planet Mercury, the color red, trickery, violence and warfare. The energy of Set characterized foreign lands outside of Egypt, the sterility of the desert, and creativity manifesting in disorder.

The poems in the installed tree textwork collection Psalm Petals transmit impressions of solitude in the desert by alienating the reader in settings and plots relating to the aspects of life for which the energy Set was responsible.

The rhythmic aspect of poetry allows readers to evade mercurial trickery through focus in a cognitive landscape of imagery influenced by Set and to find order in the eye of disorder.

One poem a day was published on Instagram, during a forty-day countdown to the solstice.

First Day
Second Day
Third Day
Fourth Day
Fifth Day
Sixth Day
Seventh Day
Eighth Day
Ninth Day
Tenth Day
Eleventh Day
Twelfth Day
Thirteenth Day
Fourteenth Day
Fifteenth Day
Sixteenth Day
Seventeenth Day
Eighteenth Day
Nineteenth Day
Twentieth Day
Twenty-first day
Twenty-first Day
Twenty-second Day
Twenty-third Day
Twenty-fourth Day
Twenty-fifth Day
Twenty-sixth Day
Twenty-seventh Day
Twenty-eighth Day
Twenty-ninth Day
Thirtieth Day
Thirty-first Day
Thirty-first Day
Thirty-second Day
Thirty-third Day
Thirty-fourth Day
Thirty-fourth Day
Thirty-fifth Day
Thirty-sixth Day
Thirty-seventh Day
Thirty-eighth Day
Second last Day
Solstice