DISCOVERY / Sculpture & Natural Forms
John Grade’s Middle Fork, the dimensions of a living tree.
A cast of a living hemlock became the starting point for a cedar sculpture that changed with each installation.
Image: John Grade StudioPublished 4 November 2026 · WHV
The Seattle Art Museum describes a plaster cast of a living western hemlock in the Cascade Mountains. Grade and a group of collaborators used the cast to work the tree’s shape in thousands of pieces of reclaimed cedar. The spaces between those pieces make it possible to look through the form as well as follow its outline.
The sculpture grew between installations. The Seattle version extended across the Brotman Forum, where a visitor could look along the trunk from below. It is an example of a work whose scale and angle of encounter have to be recorded alongside its materials.
Read the archive by venue and date. Compare photographs from more than one installation and look for changes in the length of the work and where it sits in relation to visitors.
Evidence & sources.
- John Grade Studio, Middle Fork (opens source in a new tab)
- Seattle Art Museum, Seattle installation record (opens source in a new tab)
Scope of this reading
The photograph documents the Seattle Art Museum installation, which closed in February 2025. It does not show a current exhibition.
Sources checked 4 November 2026.
FOLLOW YOUR CURIOSITY
Where this leads.
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Christopher Marley’s Cerulean Genesis, colour before the label.
Compare a work whose display also changes the way a viewer reads natural forms.
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Image: VogelART / Alicja KwadeAcross the WHV world
Alicja Kwade’s Small Matter of Void, a space between stones.
Look at another sculpture where open space carries part of the form.
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