A couple of weeks ago, I was removing a cedar tree in my backyard that had died a while back (actually, it wasn’t dead, but it was well on the way).  I cut the top fifteen feet out of the tree and left a “stump” about eight feet tall at the base of which, I planted a wisteria that I plan to train up around the remaining part of the cedar.

As I was chopping up the limbs of the cedar in preparation for our local trash hauler, it occurred to me that it would be an awful waste to throw the larger limbs away.  Just after we moved to our new house, I constructed a trellis for a climbing rose from limbs I pruned out of a couple of overgrown viburnums.  An idea began to form:  why not do an art piece from the limbs, combining the organic materials with paintings on scraps of canvas?

As the idea has evolved, here are some other aspects of the project that I’d thinking about:

1. I’m going to construct three four by six foot “trellises” that will incorporate some copper pipe bamboo, along with the canvases.
2. The trellises will be erected in our front yard.
3. The trellises will be placed on a grid that I will be laying out in the next week.
4. The grid will be four by four foot squares, numbered consecutively beginning in the northwest corner of the yard.
5. The first trellis will be place on a grid square selected by using a random number table.
6. The orientation of the trellis will be determined by designating the corners of the grid square northwest (1), northeast (2), southeast (3), and southwest (4); using the first number in the Friday Missouri Pick 4 drawing (which I will enter on the off chance that I might win enough to pay for this project), if it is 1-4, as the beginning corner; if the first number in the drawing is not 1-4, I’ll go to the second number; if the second number is not 1-4, I’ll go to the third, etc.; if none of the numbers is 1-4, I’ll use numerology to arrive at the first corner (I’ll explain this more fully in a later post).  The second corner will be determined by flipping a coin three times (I’ll also explain later how the combination of heads and tails will indicate the direction).
7. The second trellis will be adjacent to the first and the third will be adjacent to the second.  The orientation will be determined in a similar manner to the first trellis.
8. The trellises will be moved every two weeks on Sunday afternoon, through the end of September.
9. An area underneath each trellis will be stripped of grass and a combination of perennial flowers, shrubs and bulbs will be planted, extending the outcome of the art project into next spring and summer.

So, that’s what I’m working on.  I’ll post some photos of progress shortly.