I knew the exact spot I needed to have my sculpture, DENDROFEMONOLOGY: A Feminist History Tree Ring, on the National Mall. In stark contrast to the exclusively white granite male monuments that have told the founding of our country in our nation’s capital, I wanted my artwork that distills 50,000 years of feminist history onto a tree, right in front of the very phallic iconic Washington Monument as a feminist intervention. Having the artwork there would be a counterpoint to the one-sided history that ignores the stories and contributions of 50 percent of the population.
We are here! We helped create this country. We have always been here! Our history matters. Our monuments should reflect that.
I grew up near Muir Woods, in Northern California, where some of the oldest trees in the world live. Walking through the majestic redwoods has always felt like being in a cathedral of wisdom, of time, of living beings that were witness to all of humanity’s aspirations, foibles, failures, accomplishments, births, deaths and decomposition.
I returned there at each stage in my life. First as a young child holding my parents’ hands, their bodies like tall trees themselves as I looked up at them. I returned as a teen, and again as an adult and with my husband. I went again with my father, who was then using a cane, and my small child, holding my hand while looking up at me. And now, with my father long gone, my husband and our children now taller than me.
No matter what age I am, the trees’ vast height and longevity—the oldest being 1,200 years old—always made me feel both small and part of something larger than myself. The trees are these pillars of strength that compelled me to look up with wonder, humility and awe at all they had lived through. Walking among the giants, some of the oldest living things on our planet, never failed to feel poetic.
There was one aspect of my visits to this national forest that always left me gobsmacked. At the entrance, there is a tree slice around six feet in diameter displayed vertically on a stand, with metal plate labels marking historical events corresponding to the age of the tree. I would always stop and stare, fascinated by the way this tree was like a living clock, each tree ring documenting a year.
Rings close together mean there was drought; rings farther apart, equaled lots of growth and moisture. The science behind this is called dendrochronology: dendro meaning tree and chronology, time. Dendrochronology allows us to not only know the environmental conditions during the life of the tree, but you can even daisy-chain the ring pattern from one tree to another to go back thousands of years.
What an amazing timekeeper — an ancient technology in the grooves of the wood! These trees lived during a deep past we will never know and most will live on into a deep future, also way beyond our lifetimes. In addition to experiencing a height we will never know, they also live in a sense of scale in time that dwarfs us.
While the actual concept—rings telling time and such a long record of time—blew my mind, the historical moments on the tree rings left me cold. They were all so patriarchal and colonialist, marking occasions like Christopher Columbus’s sail to America and the Battle of Hastings. I felt like I was being mansplained about our history. The only lines that spoke to me on an emotional level were the first center dot, “909 AD: A tree is born“ and the last one, “1930: Tree falls.”
When I moved away from Muir Woods, I spent time in cities like New York, Hong Kong and San Francisco, and I remember being struck by the towering man-made structures. It’s interesting that what makes a building important is usually its height: the Empire State Building! The Transamerica building! And so on and so on. Behold, you will feel small near me.
Yet, these man-made monuments produce such a different feeling of tallness than the towering trees. Skyscrapers project hubris, ego and a need to present and project manhood, power and masculinity. Standing beneath them, I’m far away from the feeling of being connected to something larger than myself.
Mission Matters: Mission-Based Leaders Share Inspiring Stories on Power and Purpose (Women Leaders Edition, Volume 1) Published in late August and launching at the Take The Lead event at the Kennedy Center and Nat. Housing Center Aug 25-26th in Washington, D.C.
