Temple Tree

Temple Tree, made of glass, bronze, and petrified wood was constructed from molds taken from the largest tree in Italy, a fig tree in Palermo, and the 3,000 to 5,000 year old Hundred Horse Chestnut tree in Sant’Alfio, Sicily. The 380-year-old fig tree bark makes the base of the sculpture, while bronze castings from both living and dead portions of the Hundred Horse Chestnut make up the branching trunk of the sculpture. Embedded in the trunk is a large piece of petrified wood that is at least 50 million years old. Emerging from one bronze branch is a glass structure with a tree bark texture that is reminiscent of the Greek temples at Selinunte, Sicily, as though a memory is emerging from the trunk. The Hundred Horse Chestnut was alive when the Greek temples were built on Sicily and while they are in ruins, the tree continues growing and producing chestnuts.