I decided to place a birch tree on this piece. I am reading a children's book by Native American author, Louise Erdrich. The Birchbark House is a story of a young Native American girl on Madeline Island growing up in the late 1800's. Additionally, I just finished teaching the field trips for Maple Syrup at the MN Landscape Arboretum. During the field trips, we teach the kids about the old Native American ways of collecting the sap. They used birchbark to create baskets, mukuks for storing the maple sugar, spiles, etc. Since birchbark doesn't rot, it was an extremely useful "gift". So the combination of these events, along with our beautiful trip to the North Shore in January, made me decide to use the birch tree. This is a rough layout of the birch. Additional branches will be added. I'm not sure if I'll add leaves or not - stay tuned. Finally, I am debating on changing the name of this piece to "The Gift". We shall see what this piece decides.
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