The Arcadia piece was created at the invitation of the Ontario Crafts Council for their Elemental Connections show in 2007. It consists of a small ash tree that has been freshly dug and ‘reconstructed’ with a glass trunk.  The piece reflects my preoccupation with the implications and consequences of human intervention in the natural world which, despite the best of intentions, is too often a record of ineptitude and errors in judgement.  Reluctantly, and only partly tongue-in-cheek, I submitted the following in response to a request for yet another artist’s statement:

A ludic, dystopic view, suggesting that sustainability, like Arcadia itself, may be an entirely contrived but essential notion arising out of deep-rooted/ancestral anxieties about our place in a larger non-human space.  A notion that must, of necessity, be deracinated, incomplete, ill-fitting, depauperate, off-kilter, bathetic.                                                                                                                                                      "Another fine mess you've got us into, Stanley."                                                                   - Oliver Hardy

- the artist attempting to reassemble Arcadia