The Story Behind the Work

Dead or not, it took some wrangling to get a 25-foot tree, with a canopy to match, through a doorway only nine feet across diagonally. Several strong bodies had to be recruited, branches had to be trimmed -- they were later reattached with the assistance of a wood sculptor; look for the subtle scars -- and the gallery floor was scratched in the process.

Finding, and uprooting, the perfect tree was no mean feat, either. The dogwood on view, which Shinji Turner-Yamamoto chose for its crooked elegance, came from a grassy patch in Reston's Governors Square neighborhood, where curator Joanne Bauer says it was slowly being "killed with kindness" (i.e., too much mulch). After checking with Miss Utility for underground power lines and carefully clearing some of the soil away from the roots by hand, professional tree movers scooped the tree out of the ground with a large, jawlike contraption called a tree spade.

Turner-Yamamoto's original proposal, calling for dogwood seedlings to be planted in the tree's branches, was nixed in favor of ferns, which have a shallower root system. They should thrive, even in the warm, dry air of the gallery, says Bauer, who expects them to require 1 1/2 to 2 hours of watering and TLC a day.

And just how does she figure that?

"Sleeping Tree" isn't the first living art installation to be shown in the gallery. Last year at this time, the arts center was busy tending to another sculpture -- one covered with live grass -- by artist Foon Sham.

"When we applied for grants for this one," Bauer says, "we wrote, 'The staff has horticulture experience.' "