Cara Johnson

Creek (willow) 2023
Iron wire

Artist statement:

The bit of the creek where the willow grows is dank and dark, and quiet. Underneath is slippery as the brown and yellow leaves rot. Tangled roots thirstily cling to the muddy banks and limbs reach across shallow water.

It wasn’t very long ago that I was despondent looking out across this section of creek. Inside the fence line the willow snaked its way along the waterline changing everything as it crept allowing nothing else to grow here. But the fence line placed this bit of creek out of my hands, the thin iron wire denoted and divided, tensioned between posts made from old trees.

I cut a willow branch from this place and dragged it home. With iron wire I welded thousands of times around the undulations of the branch, each spot weld producing a small puff of smoke as the thin bark underneath the metal threatened to ignite. Once completely encased I let the branch burn so that a hollow tracing remained.

Through this iron tracing I choose to honour the willow and surrender a little. When I look away, to a different stretch of the same creek I can see tall remnant trees and seedlings glowing as the sun illuminates them through tree guards.

I walked the ash back down the hill to the creek, and let the wind take it, and as I hold onto this iron wire outline, I hope amidst the hopelessness.