The film segment to be shown is part of the upcoming feature documentary, Out On A Limb. This dramatic footage of the making of the naked “TreeSpirit Project” photograph filmed at the Angel Oak on May 14th aired on ABC-4 and CBS-5. Meet the filmmakers and the protagonist,TreeSpirit Project founder, Jack Gescheidt.  Learn how and why this photograph was made and participate in a Q & A session. Join the community devoted to preserving the Angel Oak’s forest habitat and the unique rural character of Johns Island.

BUY YOUR TICKET NOW BEFORE IT IS SOLD OUT.

Donations needed for Angel Oak Exhibit: GIVE your old cloths and scrap fabrics a NEW EXPERIENCE

Donate your cloths, textiles and fabrics for a new exhibit, the tree of life, at the Children’s Museum of Lowcountry.  This new exhibit is part of the Museum’s new artist-in-residency program.

About the exhibit

The tree of life (working title), will be a collaborative, site-specific installation (exhibit) at the Children’s Museum of Low county.  This artwork will be created by Museum visitors (children and their families) and artist-in-residence Jennifer Van Winkle.  It will be on view starting late spring 2010.

The tree of life will celebrate the natural treasure, The Angel Oak located near Charleston.  The focus of the exhibit will be an activity center (play structure) inspired by the Angel Oak.  This activity center will be a large tree design that encompasses most of one of the Museum’s rooms.  The tree of life, will be constructed from reclaimed wood, and recycled textiles, including clothing.  The intent is to encourage exploration of space—both physical space and the imagination andplant seeds of environmental awareness and stewardship.  Visitors will be able to crawl, slide, and move through the spaces.  There will be additional areas in the exhibit for hands-on explorations and play related to Nature.

PLEASE DONATE:

Scrap textiles, used clothing and household fabrics (blankets, sheets) needed.

All colors, sizes and textures accepted.  (Cotton, polyester, corduroy, silk, velvet, leather, etc.)
Exception, no sweaters (or knit/woven fabric) please.

Long pieces of fabric especially needed ASAP.  These pieces will be cut for making braids and large-scale weaving.

Drop-off your CLEAN and used (or unwanted) clothing and textiles to the Museum at 25 Ann Street, Charleston, SC.

Tuesday-Saturday, 9am-5pm and Sunday 1-5pm

Thank you for helping make this new contemporary art experience available for kids!

About the Artist

Jennifer Van Winkle is an installation artist, who creates spaces for people to go inside. Her new body of work begun in 2008, entitled, sustainable creativity: newexperiences>reused materials, involves the creation of sculptures, site-specific installations and collaborative art projects with communities.  Sustainable creativity developed from her passion for making large-scale things and building both objects and relationships.  So far this series has involved working with textiles, cardboard, paper plastics, and natural materials.  She has been an artist-in-residence at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.  She will be an artist-in-residency for the Children’s Museum of Lowcountry from March-early June, 2010. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia with her scientist husband and their big tom cat, Willie.

About the Project

Recyclable textiles and materials are clogging the nation’s landfills and their incineration spews tons of chemicals into our atmosphere every day.  The Tree of Life is the Children’s Museum of the Low country’s solution of sustainable creativity that raises environmental awareness and stewardship in Low country children and families.   Built by Museum visitors, members and the Museum’s Artist in Residence, this innovative community art installation will be constructed solely of recyclable materials.

The Tree of Life (working title) is a collaborative, community art installation made exclusively of recyclable or reusable materials at the Children’s Museum of the Low country as part of CML’s national Artist-in-Residency program from March – May 2010.  The Tree celebrates a national Low country treasure, the 1500 year-old live oak tree, Angel Oak. This innovative art experience (and summer 2010 exhibit) will plant the seeds of environmental awareness and stewardship with the children and families that take part in its design and construction.  In addition, the installation of recyclable and reusable materials reduces the need for landfill space and reduces pollution from incinerators.  At the completion of the project, the materials are put pack into the recycling system (or nature) to have another “life” beyond contemporary art and our Museum.

“….the 1450 year-old Angel Oak on John’s Island was already a large tree by the time of the Crusades. According to legend, the twisted limbs of the enormous Angel Oak shaded a familiar meeting site for Indians living on John’s Island.”

The Chicora Research Company did an archaeological study, entitled The Cultural Resources Survey of the Johns Island Property, Charleston County, South Carolina.  This entire report can be found at the Johns Island library on Maybank Highway in the local history section.

It says,

“As a result of this cultural resources survey one archaeological site (38CH1933) and one isolated find (38CH00) was identified.  Site 38CH1933 consists of a mid-nineteenth century domestic site.  The site has the potential to provide information about the former settlement in the area.  The site does extend off the current survey area, so it is impossible to evaluate the entire site. It is therefore RECOMMENDED POTENTIALLY ELIGIBLE FOR THE NATIONAL REGISTER…….ONE RESOURCE, 297-0072, ANGEL OAK, IS LOCATED DIRECTLEY NEXT TO THE SURVEY AREA AND HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BE AFFECTED BY CONSTRUCTION.”

Eligibility in The National Register for Historic Places states:

“The quality of significance in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, and culture is present in districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects that possess integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association, and that have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history. ”

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From the Post and Courier, December, 1986:

“There is no question in my mind that the (Angel Oak) tree was used for something,” says T.A Beckett, who has worked on the then-overgrown Angel Oak three decades ago.  As proof, he points to the shape of the mammoth oak.  Many of the limbs touch the ground then rise up again.  Even the premier branch, with a circumference of 7 feet, 5 inches, reaches down toward the earth then curves upward.  ”Normally these oaks grow up.  They do not spread out unless there is no competition from pines,” says Beckett.  ”When a limb cannot take care of itself, it is eliminated.  For a tree of that size, something had to keep the forest from coming in and killing the limbs or the tree….from 1000 to 1400 years ago, no one was here but Indians.”

…. A tree service did test borings and, allowing for a hollow center, estimated the Angel Oak is 1400 years old, says Beckett.  ”I don’t think that is unreasonable.”  Over the centuries, he adds, Indians might have used Angel Oak as a ceremonial tree or meeting place.

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The following is taken from an interview with Septima Clark on November 20, 1980 (South Carolina Historical society):

Septima Clark was born in South Carolina in 1898. Her father Peter Porcher, was a former slave.  Septima was a teacher on John’s Island from 1916-1919, 1926-1929, and from 1942-1970.

“Segregation was at its height but the Angel Oak was not segregated.  In the springtime to have some kind of recreation for the children, we could take a lunch and go to the Angel Oak tree.  I did this from 1916 until 1929.  We could go in and have our picnics and spend the day.  The children played under the tree and then we would come back in buggies which were oxcarts.  The island people say that when they tied the oxen to the Angel Oak it dragged part of the tree too.  There are two big limbs over there dragged from the main tree.  The people declared that angels would appear in the form of a ghost at the oak.  The killings that happened around the tree during slavery time were seen by people with a call.  The spirits were around the tree and it was a live oak and they considered that angels brought the spirits there.  That tree is sacred because of the stories black people have heard from their early days.  They respect that tree.  My school children never felt they could drop paper around the tree.  The very word angel means that it is sacred to them.  They felt that anything like an angel had to be clean, loved, and respected. They didn’t feel they should do anything to desecrate it.  The Angel Oak in 1916 was really as it is today….“