Learn more about the podcast at: www.treespeechpodcast.com, and IG: treespeechpodcast
We are grateful to have spoken with Karen Hampton during our premiere episode. Hampton is an internationally recognized conceptual fiber artist, addressing issues of colorism and kinship. Hampton’s art practice is the synthesis of memory, history, time and cloth. A student of cultural relationships, seeks to break through stereotypes and address issues related to being a Black woman. Using her training in the fiber arts and anthropology, she brings together the roles of the weaver, the dyer, the painter, the embroiderer, and the storyteller.
Karen Hampton’s artwork is held in the collections of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum, Hamilton College, Clinton, New York, and the Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii and she received the coveted Eureka Prize from the Fleishhacker Foundation in 2008. Hampton is an Assistant Professor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, MA.
You can learn more about her at https://www.kdhampton.com/
Tree Speech’s host, Dori Robinson, is a director, playwright, dramaturg, and educator who seeks and develops projects that explore social consciousness, personal heritage, and the difference one individual can have on their community. Some of her great loves include teaching, the Oxford comma, intersectional feminism, and traveling.
With a Masters degree from NYU’s Educational Theatre program, she continues to share her love of Shakespeare, new play development, political theatre, and gender in performance. Directing credits include: Silent Sky (Elliot Norton Winner for Best Production – Fringe, Flat Earth Theatre), A Bright Room Called Day, Julius Caesar (co-director), The Merchant of Venice, Die Kleinen (Parts 1 & 2), The Lion in Winter, Extremities, Flight, Pippin, James and the Giant Peach, and Peter and the Starcatcher. Dori’s original plays have been produced in New York, Chicago, and Boston, including: The Great Harvest, The Principal Stream, Name of a Woman, Six Wings to One, and most recently The Elm Tree with Alight Theater Guild. More information at https://www.dorirobinson.com
The Black Walnut Tree, by Mary Oliver
My mother and I debate:
we could sell
the black walnut tree
to the lumberman,
and pay off the mortgage.
Likely some storm anyway
will churn down its dark boughs,
smashing the house. We talk
slowly, two women trying
in a difficult time to be wise.
Roots in the cellar drains,
I say, and she replies
that the leaves are getting heavier
every year, and the fruit
harder to gather away.
But something brighter than money
moves in our blood–an edge
sharp and quick as a trowel
that wants us to dig and sow.
So we talk, but we don't do
anything. That night I dream
of my fathers out of Bohemia
filling the blue fields
of fresh and generous Ohio
with leaves and vines and orchards.
What my mother and I both know
is that we'd crawl with shame
in the emptiness we'd made
in our own and our fathers' backyard.
So the black walnut tree
swings through another year
of sun and leaping winds,
of leaves and bounding fruit,
and, month after month, the whip-
crack of the mortgage.
This week’s episode was recorded in Massachusetts on the native lands of the Wabanaki Confederacy, Pennacook, Massa-adchu-es-et (Massachusett), and Pawtucket people, and was produced by Jonathan Zautner and Alight Theater Guild, a 501(c)(3) created to advance compelling theatrical endeavors that showcase the diversity of our ever-changing world in order to build strong artists whose work creates empathy, challenges the status quo and unites communities. Alighttheater.org. Logo design by Mill Riot.
We are grateful to have spoken with Karen Hampton during our premiere episode. Hampton is an internationally recognized conceptual fiber artist, addressing issues of colorism and kinship. Hampton’s art practice is the synthesis of memory, history, time and cloth. A student of cultural relationships, seeks to break through stereotypes and address issues related to being a Black woman. Using her training in the fiber arts and anthropology, she brings together the roles of the weaver, the dyer, the painter, the embroiderer, and the storyteller.
Karen Hampton’s artwork is held in the collections of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum, Hamilton College, Clinton, New York, and the Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii and she received the coveted Eureka Prize from the Fleishhacker Foundation in 2008. Hampton is an Assistant Professor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, MA.
You can learn more about her at https://www.kdhampton.com/
Tree Speech’s host, Dori Robinson, is a director, playwright, dramaturg, and educator who seeks and develops projects that explore social consciousness, personal heritage, and the difference one individual can have on their community. Some of her great loves include teaching, the Oxford comma, intersectional feminism, and traveling.
With a Masters degree from NYU’s Educational Theatre program, she continues to share her love of Shakespeare, new play development, political theatre, and gender in performance. Directing credits include: Silent Sky (Elliot Norton Winner for Best Production – Fringe, Flat Earth Theatre), A Bright Room Called Day, Julius Caesar (co-director), The Merchant of Venice, Die Kleinen (Parts 1 & 2), The Lion in Winter, Extremities, Flight, Pippin, James and the Giant Peach, and Peter and the Starcatcher. Dori’s original plays have been produced in New York, Chicago, and Boston, including: The Great Harvest, The Principal Stream, Name of a Woman, Six Wings to One, and most recently The Elm Tree with Alight Theater Guild. More information at https://www.dorirobinson.com
The Black Walnut Tree, by Mary Oliver
My mother and I debate:
we could sell
the black walnut tree
to the lumberman,
and pay off the mortgage.
Likely some storm anyway
will churn down its dark boughs,
smashing the house. We talk
slowly, two women trying
in a difficult time to be wise.
Roots in the cellar drains,
I say, and she replies
that the leaves are getting heavier
every year, and the fruit
harder to gather away.
But something brighter than money
moves in our blood–an edge
sharp and quick as a trowel
that wants us to dig and sow.
So we talk, but we don't do
anything. That night I dream
of my fathers out of Bohemia
filling the blue fields
of fresh and generous Ohio
with leaves and vines and orchards.
What my mother and I both know
is that we'd crawl with shame
in the emptiness we'd made
in our own and our fathers' backyard.
So the black walnut tree
swings through another year
of sun and leaping winds,
of leaves and bounding fruit,
and, month after month, the whip-
crack of the mortgage.
This week’s episode was recorded in Massachusetts on the native lands of the Wabanaki Confederacy, Pennacook, Massa-adchu-es-et (Massachusett), and Pawtucket people, and was produced by Jonathan Zautner and Alight Theater Guild, a 501(c)(3) created to advance compelling theatrical endeavors that showcase the diversity of our ever-changing world in order to build strong artists whose work creates empathy, challenges the status quo and unites communities. Alighttheater.org. Logo design by Mill Riot.
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