Once the tree composition and location was set, I started to explore sculptural shapes in aluminium wire.

At first I experimented, making lots of types of shape to explore what their different ‘personalities’ felt like. Some were simple and quiet, some were wriggly and funny, others jerky and awkward. I made small ones, long and tall ones, ones that bounced across the ground or tangled with each other.

I then took each tree model one by one and made different shapes specifically in relation to it, mirroring the angle of a tree trunk, wrapping the wire around it, through it and over it.

I then started to think about all the practicalities of making them and imagining them on the grass. How might they feel to walk under or through? How people might interact with them? What they’d look like from above, lying on the grass or through one to another, from close up and far away?

In the end I chose five shapes that felt right on their own with their chosen tree, and as a varied group. For me they each have a particular personality or remind me of something, but I like the idea that people will see and feel different things about them. These are photos of the aluminium wire and 3D printed trees – they are models of what the real thing will look like in stainless steel with real cherry trees.

Sculpture #1 is the longest. It emerges from the ground leaping through one tree, bouncing off the ground into the sky and darting back down to earth at the base of the next tree.

Sculpture #2 strides confidently towards its tree parallel to the Ackers Drive path.

Sculptures #3 and #4 create a ‘conversation’ between each other as they contemplate their tree.

Sculpture #5 moves quickly almost skipping around its tree.

Because they are like line drawings but three dimensional, they will change shape as you move towards and around them. They will never look the same, constantly changing depending on where you are. They will feel light. And because of their polished reflection, they’ll absorb all the colours of their surroundings, the grass, blossom, blue sky, night sky, raindrops and faces, all shimmering and darting as you move through them. These digital visuals give an impression of what the whole composition could look like from different views.