Assorted pine needles and branches, wool felt. 12’ x 10’.
The artist collected 12 discarded Christmas trees and transformed them into a floor covering through the labor-intensive process of trimming, breaking down and de-needling the trees by hand. With the resulting mulch arranged in a 19th century patchwork quilt pattern, Needle Bed evokes an odd disconnect between the natural and man-made environment and contrasts the domestic comforts associated with textile art with the ruggedness of outdoor manual labor. Needle Bed also captures the decomposing trees in a transitional state as their role changes from celebratory, decorative household fixture to recycled garden mulch. These various distinctions literally blurred as visitors walked across the unaffixed greenery, erasing the orderly pattern and breaking down the plant material even further.