Tree of the Week 3
The Bone Tree - Dana Albany
While not strictly being built for the Black Rock Forest Project, The Bone Tree has a compelling story, and a beautiful structure. Artist Dana Albany created the tree in 1999 and is finishing up the refurbishing of the tree and its armature for its reincarnation at Fly Ranch.
Bones, steel, moss 27 ft. tall
In 1999, the Bone Tree was created as a site-specific sculpture, with the stark Black Rock desert as its backdrop. It was first created to lead a procession into the coming millennium, but since then it has returned to the playa year after year, residing in front of first camp until 2014. One of its original purposes was to lead people to the different installations presented at Burning Man’s annual theme, “The Wheel of Time”.
Larry Harvey asked Dana to create a mobile sculpture, something that would travel into the past, as well as the future. She proposed the creation of the Bone Tree.
Bones are a window into the past. Paleontolgists use bones to decipher, discover and unravel secrets of bygone eras. When we die, they are what remains of us long thereafter…into the future. Dana used bones, an artifact of death, to create a tree, as a way of paying homage to existence and the precarious nature of all life, whether it be animal or plant based…life is a gift albeit temporary.
In the vastness of the playa, there appear no living creatures, no trees. In such a landscape, the Bone Tree represented the cycle of life and death.
Confronted with thousands of bones, so stark and white, one’s mortality is evident, yet construed in a tree, they are a potent symbol of life.
The majority of the bones were collected from surrounding cattle ranches and from Jimmy the Boneman. It was a tribute to the passage of time in which living animals transform from flesh to bone, the tree a final reminder of their presence on earth. And thus the cycle repeats…a wheel of time.
The Bone Tree is now being refurbished and will reside permanently at Fly Ranch. In collaboration with Melissa Baron and “Art for Trees”, it will become part of a far larger land art installation. The remnants of the original bone tree has already been moved to Fly Ranch. Right before shelter-in-place, Dana collaborated with ‘Metal’ Heather Marie Curran in the creation of a larger armature with thicker branches that could withstand the test of time for its final resting place, rooted into the ground, no longer mobile. Once the Bone Tree is completed this year, native trees will be planted by Melissa ‘Syn’ Barron in concentric circles, radiating out from the Bone Tree. Trees will continue to be planted over the course of a five year “Living Memorial “sustainability plan.
Dana will also be creating a tree for the Back Rock Forest Project! More on that later.
