2024 Artist in Residence Michele Pollock’s exquisitely embroidered installation, Health/Care Network, is now on display under a small shelter near the Sensory Garden.
The work reflects Pollock’s deep engagement with seven trees she grew to cherish during her residency at Bernheim.
From the Artist:
I have spent a lot of time in forests, hiking, photographing, sketching, and foraging for materials for my artwork. At Bernheim, I experienced trees differently. In the arboretum, trees are carefully spaced, tended, tracked, and labeled. When I photographed and sketched them, I met each tree not just as a species, Tuliptree or Shellbark Hickory, but as an individual. Some had been struck by lightning, and others stood near familiar landmarks like the Sensory Garden picnic tables. The botanists even kept detailed histories of many trees.
When I gathered leaves for eco-printing on paper, I knew exactly which tree each leaf came from. This changed my approach to art. I collected leaves from many trees in several sessions, carefully tracking which leaves went on each piece of paper and exploring the unique marks each tree left behind.
During my residency, I also read extensively about trees and forests, their ecology, their underground networks with fungi, and their health benefits. I studied Dr. Qing Li’s research on forest bathing in Japan, which showed that time among trees lowers cortisol, anxiety, and blood pressure, improves depression symptoms, and even boosts natural killer cells. The effects were significant and lasted up to seven days.
As someone living with an autoimmune disease and exploring illness and grief in my art, I found this research inspiring. I began doodling cells and antibody shapes in my notebook and realized I could use these cellular forms as the basis for my vine armatures.
I selected seven trees from the arboretum, native species with interesting eco-prints, to create one cellular structure for each tree. Collectively, these seven structures form Health/Care Network, installed in a small pavilion near the Sensory Garden and close to the Meditation Trail. Two of the trees featured in the piece, a Red Maple and a Shellbark Hickory, grow nearby.
The process was deeply meaningful. From meeting each tree as an individual to journaling beneath it, eco-printing its leaves, and hand-embroidering while referencing my notes and photographs, I felt a strong connection to both the trees and the practice of slow, meditative work. This process allowed me to grieve the loss of hiking in my own woods while discovering a new way of being among trees.
I plan to continue this type of work, combining slow processes like eco-printing, dyeing, and hand-stitching with as much time among trees as my body allows. Whether through short walks, sitting on a bench under the trees, or engaging with them through photography, these experiences shape my art and my life.
Making art with trees as collaborators has helped me navigate illness and grief. It has not returned me to my life before illness, but it has guided me into a new life that is different, yes, but equally rich, sometimes even richer, than the one I knew before.
