Glory is the name I gave to an enormous elm tree that grew and lived “in” the fence between my backyard and my neighbour’s. It was truly glorious.
One day during a very hot Australian summer, my kids and I decided to move into the backyard and live under that beautiful tree. So, we gathered up everything we thought we would need and abandoned our house. Luckily, the bathroom was at the back of the house!
Because we were living a real-life experiment, we decided we should make more of our gear, recycling what we could. A friend gave us some leather scraps, old tools, and we searched for and found a large, round, flat rock to work on. That rock was our work bench, kitchen bench, and lantern rock. It lived next to our campfire.
My kids and I made leather pouches, bags, and wraps for food. We ground up coloured ochre into powders and painted ourselves and everything we made. The kids climbed the tree every day. My middle daughter, about 9 years old at the time, practically lived in the tree. She took her food up there, she did her homework up there, and she just sat in the tree for long periods, like a koala.
So, when it came time for us to move away (to live in a forest), I felt moved to draw the tree. I called it “Glory”. Glory had become a part of our family and is remembered lovingly, wondrously, as OUR tree even now, decades later.
The Copyright watermark will NOT appear on your print.
The original is in a private collection.
The Story...
Glory is the name I gave to an enormous elm tree that grew and lived “in” the fence between my backyard and my neighbour’s. It was truly glorious.
One day during a very hot Australian summer, my kids and I decided to move into the backyard and live under that beautiful tree. So, we gathered up everything we thought we would need and abandoned our house. Luckily, the bathroom was at the back of the house!
Because we were living a real-life experiment, we decided we should make more of our gear, recycling what we could. A friend gave us some leather scraps, old tools, and we searched for and found a large, round, flat rock to work on. That rock was our work bench, kitchen bench, and lantern rock. It lived next to our campfire.
My kids and I made leather pouches, bags, and wraps for food. We ground up coloured ochre into powders and painted ourselves and everything we made. The kids climbed the tree every day. My middle daughter, about 9 years old at the time, practically lived in the tree. She took her food up there, she did her homework up there, and she just sat in the tree for long periods, like a koala.
So, when it came time for us to move away (to live in a forest), I felt moved to draw the tree. I called it “Glory”. Glory had become a part of our family and is remembered lovingly, wondrously, as OUR tree even now, decades later.
The Copyright watermark will NOT appear on your print.