Drip. Seasons changing.

Drop. Sap flows from the root of the tree to the branches. The start of spring is always a lively time in my household.

Drip. The tree started to come back to life. This is the time my family starts to get back outdoors.

Drop. The trees start to remember who they are. My dad and I always start with the tree in the back. It was the largest and always produced the most sap.

Drip. The memories of leaves and green. About summers of the past. Two taps were placed on this tree. One facing the house and the other facing the street.

Drop. Memories that are fluid like the sap contained in the tree. Each morning I would wake up and check the buckets that were placed under the taps.

Drip. A Quarter full.

Drop. Half full.

Drip. One Bucket.

Drop. Two Buckets.

Splash. Memories flow like buds bursting on the trees. Years change and so do the buds. New ones appear but there are always memories of how to grow. Once we started to see less and less sap come from the tree it was time to boil.

Bubble. Tree grows new. Memories change. Things that were once remembered are somehow different. Boiling maple sap is a gradual process. It takes from dawn to dusk, making the porch air have the most incredible sweet smell.

Bubble. Memories fade and fragment. They distill. Get rid of unnecessary moments in time. Thick amber liquid condensed to hold memories.

Pop. What happens when this can no longer be completed. When trees die or people move away. How will it be remembered when memories are no longer revisited?

Distilled Memories looks at memory through a family’s annual ritual of tapping maple Trees. Using these two historical processes (vanDyke brown and Cyanotype) layered on top of each other, one process reveals, while the other conceals or bleaches the photograph beneath, in turn showing the malleability of memories through the layering of images. Loss comes in the form of a leaf silhouette which obstructs images. The leaves connect memories, cutting off part of the images, omitting details within each photograph, but often replacing information – each layer altering the one before.

This installation is placed on a wall, with the largest abundance of images starting from the top. A few pieces hung towards the bottom of the installation/wall to represent a distillation of memories. Some of the clearer images are placed on a line (approximately 60” to center), allowing ease for the viewer to experience. There is a combination of framed and unframed images. Images in frames show portraits of the people as they make maple syrup. They also contain landscapes of forests where this process is done. The unframed images contain scans of the leaves used to create the silhouette.