EMERITUS (Black Spruce) 

Project Sponsor: Anchorage Museum
Sculpture Location: Mentasta lake area, Interior Alaska, Ahtna land: 62.872953, -143.715489
January 2024 (temporary installation)

Salvaged wood and cast resin parts suspended from twelve nets anchored to surrounding trees. Each net measured between 8 to 14 feet in diameter, set 12 to 20 feet above the ground.

Emeritus is inspired by shifting boundaries of tree growth, especially how people contribute to this change through wildfire management and assisted migration when replanting after burns. Installed on a small island in Interior Alaska, each of the twelve suspended forms amass around a central vertical hollow space that is the size of the surrounding spruce trunks. The thousands of cast and carved pieces reference cones, needles, and branches. Lower suspended parts carved in wood are also superficially burned to invoke the tree’s complex relationship to wildfire.

The boreal forest where the sculpture was installed, is a sea of black spruce and a landscape of tilting trunks in shifting soil. Spruce-bark beetles and wildfire are agents of change here. The sculpture was installed during the coldest season of the year so that its shapes could relate to the wind-driven shifting snow below it as well as accumulated ice formation on its suspended parts. During the five-day installation, temperatures fell below -30 Fahrenheit with heavy winds and snow, but there were also still, clear periods and nights with a nearly full moon casting shadows on and through the sculpture and supporting trees.

The sculpture was installed here because it was a meaningful location for it to exist briefly rather than a place where it could reasonably be seen. We lit the sculpture artificially at night to capture its varied presence. Wind impacted the sculpture visually as well as audibly as the suspended parts knocked together, especially once covered with ice. Silence was equally impactful, during calm periods in light and dark.

The first iteration of Emeritus in Oregon in 2022-2023 can be seen here.

Our installation group included Jim Kohl, John Hagen, and Ryan Kenny from the Anchorage Museum and Matthew Soma and Sam Kuniholm from John Grade Studio.

Photography and video: Jim Kohl: project images 1-5, 15, 17-19, process image 14, and final frame in the video. John Hagen: project images 6, 10 and process images 2, 10-13. Matthew Soma: project image 7, process images 3-4, sculpture map, and penultimate frame in the video. Sam Kuniholm: project images 11, 16.