Artist Rebecca Mayo has launched a collaborative art program examining “the role of trees during uncertain times”. Participants are being invited to take a rubbing of their favourite local tree. She asks “Has this slower paced, looped walking (where we set off to get out of the house, rather than to reach a physical destination) allowed us to pay a new kind of attention to our neighbourhoods and what grows there?”
I received my kit last week and took advantage of the relatively windless conditions to take a rubbing of my favourite tree. In this case one of the remnant Eucalyptus melliodora (Yellow Box), that started life on Ngunnawal land (before European colonisation), survived pastoralism and having a suburb and an oval built around it. We guesstimate that the trunk is more than 3 metres in circumference (I forgot to measure the rubbing before I sent it off).
I had some help with friends to hold the paper as I circumnavigated the tree’s large circumference.
We also had some discussions with passers by who were happy to share their thoughts on this tree with us.
The rubbings will form the basis of an exhibition by Rebecca to be held at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre in 2021.
leonieandrews 
What a magnificent tree. Three metres – that’s a lot of growing.
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It certainly is. Just imagine what it has experienced over it’s lifetime.
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Great project. I love the trees in our neighborhood and on our campus. When I lived in Urbana-Champaign, IL, there was a sycamore tree I’d hug every time I saw it. There’s one in Alabama who gets my hugs now.
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We always say hello and give “Big Tree”, as we have so imaginatively named it, a pat when we go past on our walks.
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such a beautiful honouring for the trees!
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It seems that many people see it that way. A friend who is also going to participate has told me that the orgainers have been swamped by the numbers of people wanting to participate.
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