The inspiration for this project began in a pond apple swamp, and continues through my encounters with nature all around - the curious shapes of plants, their animated qualities, their social networking within their surroundings! The loss of trees locally from hurricane Ian left a lasting impression with tree trunks remaining like ghostly footprints left behind as a reminder of their importance. The ability of trees to connect with each other creates an ecosystem supporting many species, including us! With that in mind, I created this project to encourage appreciation and awareness. One side of this scene features a transformative "tree of life" - a symbolic figure growing roots and sprouting branches from the cross section trunk (head) to represent growing awareness, as well as mythological connections, and the opportunity to interact - print a leaf for the canopy, a pond apple bloom, a snail kite, and more - or just enjoy the scene!

Creative Action Mobilized began as a vision to present my 3-dimensional mixed media installations on wheels, on a garment rack base as an oversized shadow box for me to create and arrange modular elements - imagery real and imagined - around themes expressing environmental concerns. A grant from the City of Ft. Myers, FL, helped my kick start the first interactive project, “Intertwined in the Realm of Trees”.

With a pond apple swamp as inspiration, I created an environment of plants based on sketches from nature, focusing on shapes but juxtaposed in combinations that might suggest mixing of native, non-native and an element of imagination! I used freestanding cutout foam trees from my pond apple tree sketches (because they already have a magical look), layers of colorful paintings of plants, paper vines from recycled materials, constructed birds real, imagined, and symbolic, ghost orchids and a giant sphinx moth. As I was composing the scene and noticing effects of lighting, I decided to create a large scale cutout of a tree figure for the other side to add more depth, making it more complex and a longer timeline but I wanted to follow the vision. As it turned out, the tree figure was a favorite! I chose a printmaking activity featuring 6 stamps - a ghost orchid, giant sphinx moth, pond apple bloom, leaf, apple snail shell, and a snail kite - to show connections within the pond apple swamp ecosystem. “Intertwined in the Realm of Trees” made 2 public appearances, and was recently on display in an exhibition of the City of Ft. Myers Grant Recipients.