Ann Arbor is passing the two century mark as an officially designated city this year. The Ann Arbor Art Fair decided to celebrate by providing a statue on the Diag, which was dedicated just before the art fair started.
“The piece represents the cycle of life from birth,” State Street District Executive Director and Bicentennial Committee Member Angela Helfin said. While Helfin said that the piece was selected before she became the State Street E.D., she added “I know that the directors were inspired by the tree, the symbolism of it, and have worked with the artist for many some time.”
The 11 plus foot statue was placed at the corner of North U and State Street, a part of town that competes with the Big House for the crown of being the beating heart of Treetown. It seems appropriate then that artist Richard Morgan made the sculpture into a tree.
A former maker of aircraft components, Morgan has been a welder and scrapper his whole life.
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“Eighty-five percent of my art is repurposed materials”, Morgan said. Just like how the house he lives in is actually a renovated barn. He started making scrap into art as part of his personal therapy following the death of his son Nathan.
Morgan explained in an interview by phone that “that center column of the Tree of Life is actually a five ton jack that would’ve jacked up an airplane. … I had the rebar bent by a company out of Holland, Ohio. The ring and all the rebar was scrapped. I had to pick it out, bend it, clean it. The worst part of the process is cleaning the material. Then we decided to fill the tree in, decide what height you want to put it at, because the height changes the look of your whole sculpture.”
“A lot of religions all over the world have trees as part of their symbols. For me, it is a circle of life,” Morgan said.
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Drew Saunders is a freelance business and environmental journalist who grew up just outside of Ann Arbor. He covers local business developments, embraces his foodie side with reviews restaurants, obsesses over Michigan's environmental state, loves movies, and feels spoiled by the music he gets to review for Ann Arbor!
