I feel like I’ve always known the bur oak, but then I remember that I didn’t meet the tree until the winter of 2018. The first picture I have of the bur oak is from December 11, 2018, a flash in the life of the bur oak which is well over 300 years old. I visit the tree often because when I see it, I remember that it has been there since long before Jackson Park, since long before Chicago, when that land was an open oak savanna. This bur oak perhaps was known by Indigenous Peoples of the Council of Three Fires. 

These pictures are about the beauty, resilience and strength, the vitality of the everchanging life of that bur oak. It looks different every time I see it. Most of the constructed images follow a season of visits to the bur oak, known in my family as, “the tree”. I want viewers to be able to explore the tree with their eyes, to stand in front of a picture and recognize the tree’s endurance, to see time passing. One recent summer, the bur oak had an infection, its leaves were riddled with holes all the way throughout its branches. I called the city arborist who came out to look at it and said the infection was not life threatening. The next summer, the tree looked radiant with glossy big green leaves. Last week, when I was there, the tree somehow looked bigger and stronger than ever! I rejoice in kinship with this bur oak even as I grieve the losses of climate change. The bur oak’s story is one of resilience and gives me hope.