I spent years in the building industry working with timber — keeping the pieces others would throw away, giving them a second life, because it never felt right to discard something that had taken so long to become what it was.

Then I moved to Melbourne, fell in love with the Victorian high country, started hiking most weekends, one afternoon on Mt Feathertop I sat down beside a stack of fallen mountain ash and everything shifted.

All those rings. All those lives. Similar but different. I didn't know what I was looking at yet, but I knew I needed to find out.

That was 2014. I failed at the first attempts — badly. I kept going. I stumbled across an artist called Brian Nash Gill who used fire in his process, and something clicked. The controlled burn opens the grain, brings the rings to the surface, makes them readable.

I bought a burner. I kept trying. Eventually something emerged that looked like what I'd seen in the forest. From there it was just about practice. and thinking.

What was this, really? What did it mean? I felt — and still feel — a deep sense of duty to speak for the trees. Not romantically. Practically. That's why replanting is built into the practice.

That's why I acknowledge the custodians of the land. That's why I only work with trees that have already fallen. This isn't about taking. It's about continuity.

I am not a full-time artist in the way people imagine. I am a person who found something important to do and is trying to do it properly.