a 14 foot tree is built out of plywood, planted outside, chopped down, milled back into a sheet of plywood, and returned to Home Depot in exchange for a receipt, completing its tortured cycle from tree to wood to paper. See the plywood tree website at 
http://www.plywoodtree.com.
Making the plywood tree
It took about 300 hours over January and February 2007 to build the plywood tree. Here are many, many photos.
Planting the plywood tree
On a cold february morning Baca, Shelly and Brian came out to help plant the plywood tree. See some photos here
Felling the plywood tree
On a surprisingly chilly April 18, feeling about as cold as that February morning when we planted the thing, Steve Roberge and I pulled out his rusty old two-man saw, and took the plywood tree down. After about twenty minutes of mud and sweat and rust and sawdust, I popped open the trunk of my little honda, pulled out a rental chain saw, was given a 15 second lesson, and finished the tree off.
See a
Milling the plywood tree
I then ripped the trunk of the tree into approximately 6" x 3/4" slabs, and reglued them into a standard 2' x 4' sheet of plywood. See more photos of the milling here
Returned to Home Depot
other stuff
Plywood Stump
Plywood stump test piece, built in Tucker Houlihan's Edifice class (DmTuckerTwo)
Related Blogs
- Starlings Synecdoche - how Starling's representative loops differ from mine, the attitude of the spiral (inward or centrifugal), and uselessness.
- the remains, and the part that lives on
Press
- DIF Magazine : Lisbon
- 944 Magazine : Phoenix
- The Providence Phoenix Providence
- Estonian Blog
- Moco Loco
- Upcoming articles in Architectures a vivre/ Paris, ?HighRes, and Third Floor/ Brooklyn
Related Work
Real trees
Slices of branches
Some photos of a big cedar that was sliced with a chainsaw, exposing sections of its branches that looked an awful lot like the sections of dowels exposed when I milled down my plywood tree. I took the photo on the [Lake Tenaya-Cloud Rest- Half Dome hike in Yosemite National Park.
Ai Wei Wei
Returning things to stores
Zoe Sheehan Saldana
6lb. Paper Bag Trade, 2005
On April 28, 2005, I traded a paper bag of my own creation for a paper bag of equal size. The trade took place at La Taza de Oro at 96 Eighth Ave. between 14 and 15 Sts. in Manhattan.
Capri with Strapping (Black), 2004
Originally purchased on June 14, 2004 for $9.87 from the Wal-Mart store in Berlin, Vermont.
The clothing was duplicated by hand, matching pattern, fabric and embellishments. The tags from the original item were sewn into the duplicate. The duplicate was returned to the rack in Wal-Mart for potential sale at $9.87.
Transformations / Material loops
SimonStarling
Shed Boat Shed
Neha Choksi
'N'eha Choksi's sculpture Simply Reconstituted presents a simplified and idealized form of a tree in a manner that might be imagined by a child. The stump is cast from sawdust that blends together the wood of numerous harvested, processed trees. The life histories of felled cherry, oak, mahogany and poplar trees in a forest are brought together into a single hybrid story. As a form, the trunk itself is no longer a living thing, but the remainder of a tree. Choksi is interested in the ambivalence of this symbol of death that is in turn created from other dead trees. ''
Giuseppe Penone
Helicodial tree. Carved away at a railroad tie, leaving the knots be, eventually exposing the tree beneath.
Charles Ray
and nameless other Japanese wood carvers
Plywood Endgrain
Rosie Hanna
Malia Jensen
"a conceptual trickster exploring the presumptive tropes inherent in materials, human psychology and animals" -http://www.jeffjahn.com/HavingWords.htm
Richard Lowe, Jr.
Art with Plywood
Sherrie Levine Knot Paintings, 1986
Robert Gober
Receipts
Alejandro Cesarco
"the artist sent a bouquet of lillies to 10 well-known female artists (Roni Horn, Yvonne Rainer, and Yoko Ono among them) with the florists' delivery receipts displayed as documentation. Sincere and witty, it's one of the best examples of Cesarco's knowingly futile attempts to process feelings of love, admiration and optimism through adaptable media and protracted means" Catherine Taft, Modern Painters, December 2006-January 2007, p. 78 (also get photo from page 79)
Jordon Wolfson
John Armleder &
Jordan Wolfson
John's Laundry, 2004
laundered SI flag and receipt
Other statements
I am interested in the things we take for granted, and how the assumptions behind that which we already "know" are often unquestioned and unfounded. By doggedly twisting these unconscious assumptions into futile loops, I hope to create a little space for maneuvering between what we are aware of, and what we think we know. I use finely-built objects of everyday craft as my vehicles for these misguided, object-driven adventures. For instance, we all know that trees are made of wood, so in this piece ('There was a man who made a tree, just so he could chop it down') I built a 14 foot tree out of plywood, planted it outside, chopped it down, milled it back into a sheet of plywood, and returned it to Home Depot in exchange for a receipt, completing its tortured cycle from tree to wood to paper. As does much contemporary craft (albeit unwittingly), this project conflates popular notions of exchange value and use value, deflating the series of transformations into a final product that is merely a withered symbol of exchange.
My proposal for this exhibit involves the exhibition of some of the remnants of the plywood tree, which can be selected from the stump, branches, a burl, numerous photo and video documentation, and, of course, the receipt.