I took this picture at Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois just this week. I first noticed this tree from my perch on a 12-foot high platform built around a 60-foot tall Sycamore tree, a lookout point above the arboretum's one-acre Maze Garden. I was instantly irritated when I noticed this tree because I thought that it had been painted and I felt that an arboretum, whose mission it is to plant and conserve trees, had no right to defile one of their own trees. I decided to get down off the platform and go investigate. As I got closer, the "paint" on the trunk started looking lacier and I soon noticed that somebody had lovingly crocheted a tree cozy. That somebody is Ohio artist Carol Hummel, in a work of art that she calls "Lichen It!" In her artist statement, Hummel says that she is creating a "visual and fun reminder of the crucial long-term relationship between man and nature." Her work won me over.
