In many cultures, black walnut trees are considered to be a
symbol of gathering energy and New Beginnings that makes them
the perfect treat for this. Our very first episode, my name
is Dori Robinson and this is tree speech.
A podcast where we explore and celebrate the importance of
trees in our lives. This whole project began when my
collaborators had a light Our Guild and I wanted to learn and
share stories about trees are connections to them.
The science behind them the history symbolism folklore, and
modern-day impact. So let's get started.
When was the last time you saw a black walnut tree?
You'd know it from its tall straight stature, they can grow
up to 150 feet. In fact competing with the rest
of the overstory for light from its beautiful strong and dark
wood to the nutritious food. They provide the black walnut
has To offer. They have a defensive side to.
They are a Leo Pathak exuding, a chemical called juglone, a
natural herbicide. That is toxic for other plants.
This means that many other plants cannot live underneath it
giving the roots a lot more space.
We'll hear more about the black walnut tree.
As we sit down to speak with artists Gardener and
Storyteller, Karen Hampton residing in the Greater Boston
area. Karen Hampton is an
internationally recognized conceptual fiber.
Artists addressing issues of colorism and kinship Hamptons
art. Practice is the synthesis of
memory history, time and cloth a student of cultural
relationships. She 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 dire, the
painter, the embroiderer, and the Storyteller before we get
started, a quick note part of the answer.
Reason for this podcast was seeing how many more people are
getting outside. During the pandemic, we are
walking running hiking and adventuring more benefiting from
tree bathing and just generally taking in The Wonder of trees,
it makes us breathe differently. More deeply inspired by this.
We will begin and end every episode with a big deep breath
to help us feel as grounded as the trees.
We talk about, you'll hear me guide that brief exercise in
just a moment. So we start by taking a deep
breath in. And letting it out.
So Karen, you are a Beyond accomplished International
artists. And yet, I got the great Fortune
of meeting you around the campfire, here in Lowell in this
first season of tree speech. I'm asking people who have
really resonated with me as an artist and as a person to share
stories with me. And so I really appreciate you
coming here. So that I can ask you the
question. Tell me a story about a tree.
Okay, well, my tree is a black walnut tree and it was a very
pivotal moment in my life. When I was about, I think I was
10 and my parents were getting a divorce and decided that my
mother would take my sister and I to Jamaica.
So that my father could move out and all of that sort of stuff
and my grandmother stayed. And during that time, we had
this black walnut tree in our yard in this fenced area in our
yard, and my grandmother decided to have the tree cut down or had
planned. And so it involved our next door
neighbors who were gardeners, and they came, and they cut the
tree down and they composted the tree underground, they were
Happenes family of two generations of gardeners and and
so that was what they did. And that was the first time I
ever heard about compost or anything else, but it, you know,
began to decompose in the soil and everything and that ended up
providing the space for my first garden.
And then my grandmother, who had had at least one heart attack at
that point. You know, she asked me if I when
I got back she asked, would I help her set up the garden?
And so, you know, I had never done any gardening.
I mean, I hadn't really paid, pant, plants, much attention,
until that point. And I went out there and, you
know, she told me what she need me to do, and I did it.
And once I started, I couldn't stop.
So, I had a garden every year until I left home in that spot
and I always felt like it was a trick.
My grandmother was working me into gardening.
Wow. What a wonderful trick though?
Your grandmother sounds like a very smart woman.
Yeah, she was. Yeah, she did not many words but
she was observing and so she knew how to feed people feed on
multiple levels. Yeah.
Yeah, so when you first came
back and saw that the black walnut tree was not there were
you surprised devastated didn't even notice?
Well, you know, I the tree is far, as I was concerned always
just took up this huge amount of space.
Uh-huh, there was a black walnut tree and there was a banana
tree. And and so these two trees and
when they cut down the banana tree, the banana tree, just
Grows Right Back. Like wow, growing.
In the same day. Oh, you know the banana tree was
not going away, but I'd never been able to even get inside
that fence and it just was like, not used.
So it was like, making this land available and I think it was the
first time that I became aware that land was really important
to me. That is that is a huge, huge
thought. I mean just the fact that you
said it was the first time that you were introduced to
composting that it's suddenly We made space for so many other
things to happen and laid the groundwork for your gardening to
continue year after year. One a deep in my, my
relationship with my next-door neighbor's the father was
someone that I, you know, I would go and just talk to him.
Oh, we had this intimacy over this.
This tree had like, broken down, cultural barriers.
Wow, man, the grandfather who spoke no English, but I would go
over there and their whole tree with their whole yard was bonds.
I'd so I was learning about trees and learning about
different growing methods from when I was a little kid that's
kind of incredible to break down the sort of cultural barriers
just by having this space to do so, a lot of your work.
Deals with cultural continuity. I mean, you very much address,
giving voice to the voiceless, especially sort of that
disconnection. We have sometimes with our
predecessors, with our ancestors who we don't know their stories
are have a difficult time, finding their stories and how to
give voice to them. Can you speak a little bit about
what that Journey has been for you?
Yeah, you know, it's, it's kind of funny because my grandmother
was so important but her sister Was even more important, really?
Yeah. And so my auntie is I would call
her had been an athlete in her Youth and then it turn of the
century athlete in Jamaica and and then in the 30s became
disabled and couldn't have children.
And and so there was this major loss in her her life in her
heart. So she was like the best aunt in
the world to the First generation, and an even better
aunt to my sister and I, in the second generation.
And so she was just unconditional love and, and
every free moment in my, my life until I was 17, was what I was
devoted to her. So, you know, no matter what
ever happened in my life, she was, she was culture.
She was She became a Storyteller for me, and so she taught me the
art of story and that was how she introduced me to all of the
family. She lived in a little duplex.
She never lived more than four blocks away.
And from this position where she would only get out at most once
a week, but that through that, that little bit of space.
And so, it meant, my play Space was all inside, her plays, her
little one. Bedroom duplex and and inside
her fenced yard and the stories were just there and the
photographs were there. And so I would, I was like this
kid that would sit and go through these pictures once a
month until they imprinted. I it's like, I was trying to
imprint everyone and their stories and just remember it all
and I was her Confidant. And so No, and by the time I was
like eight, she couldn't her arthritis was so bad, she
couldn't write and so I would have to write her letters for
her. So I was part of her ability to
reach out as well and she died when I was 17.
She died during my last year of high school.
Oh my gosh. Beginning in my last semester
just days after my birthday and I and and it was it took years
to get Get over the the empty hollow inside of me.
And and so because of that, that led me to doing work with a
native healer on death and dying.
And so when I did that work, that was really important for me
to come to terms with, and to come to terms with death, they
have a phrase today is a good day.
To die and and that by by being able to say that and feel that
every day, then it allows you to live your fullest.
And then that eventually and that another things led me to a
life of a very rural life for a number of years where I lived
way way out in the country in California and lived on on
native land that Was where I could feel the spirits and talk
to the spirits and stuff like that and so that began kind of
the beginning. I would say that, you know, long
before I was doing any kind of narrative, I, ah, in those times
of having those kinds of experiences.
First, thank you for sharing that and second, if you know,
land keeps coming up in your stories between the black walnut
tree getting composted, so that it could make the land fertile
for you and your grandmother to grow Garden to living on native
land. And then I know that one of your
ancestors Flora started with 500 acres of land land, keeps coming
up for you. Is that something that I don't
know? Is that, like, how do you hold
those thoughts about land in your mind now.
Oh my God, all I want is land, you know, I don't know that I
have it in my body to actually work the land anymore.
You know? I mean I do feel the limitations
of my age but my dream is to is to have Collective land because
I think that I don't believe. Even the nuclear anything and so
I believe in the collective. Hmm.
And that the collective can have and teach so much.
The collective allows people to enjoy the fruit from the land
and to share it, you're very good at supporting other people
and telling their stories. Can we talk a little bit about
your journey as a Storyteller because you mentioned that those
seeds were planted by your aunt and I know that narrative It has
become a part of your work. There was a period in the early
90s, the very like late 80s to the early 90s where, you know,
with my field being textiles and I was primarily a weaver and I
didn't understand how I didn't quite fit into the weaving art
world, huh? I would I was like an odd fit.
I, it was like nothing, you know, I was very aware that it
was Happening. And I think I was so that for so
long, I held onto the fact that racism wasn't in the art world,
you know, needed this one part of my life that gave me so much
to not have issues of race. And and and it was this this
place where I came to this, you know, kind of I had to like get
smacked up in the face with it. A number of times for me to come
to terms with that and The Next Period of time was really about,
I I wanted to find what my true art was.
I was also, because of my time of being on in and around a res.
I really had become very clear, indigenous voices were the most
direct voices that there were, and that the work that I was
drawn to around the World, where indigenous were, and that's
where the strength was. And so that began this cluing in
to me, that race was really that it was really this construct of
colonialism. So I got very interested in
anthropology and so, my whole dive into anthropology was
really during that period of time, when anthropologists were
really starting to look at self rather than rather than the Just
the goes to another culture and studies a culture under a
microscope but really the period of time where anthropologists
were, like looking at their own garbage.
And that process of looking at your own garbage, tells you
loads of stuff with that. Did these exercises to try to
find? What was my true art.
And in that process, it began with.
I decided my very first narrative Dave was my father's
mother, who died when my father was five years old.
And her name was never spoken again.
So, I knew what a shell, it had left, my father.
And so, I went about interviewing much like you're
doing right now. Interviewing all the people that
were still alive, that had known her to recreate an image of who
she was to feel that that voice And so that's where it all
began, that's pretty incredible. The idea of there being a void
and you, you know, finding a way to fill it in on so many levels
through stories through connections with family members.
Yeah, well, you know, the Baseline of me as an artist is
to use art for healing. Now, I mean that's the first
thing that that I say is that for me the very first place that
me becoming a weaver Was that the actual process was healing
to me. And so that began with that was
why my my connection was so deep.
And then it becomes the realization that the ACT can
actually, you know, can extend beyond yourself and then extend
into communities, you know, like when I was really creating this,
I'm in, there was nothing written on it.
There was absolutely nothing. Just was like going on this gut
intuitive thing about who and what I needed.
And so, you're well, if it helps me then it must be able to help
other people. And so in that way, I started
realizing, oh, I can start disseminating and using my art
form. Because because writers do it,
you know, just because it's not the path for the visual artists
usually take, there's a whole track record because Writers
have been doing it forever. So I know it's an artist that
there's this pressure for everything to look.
Good to look polish to be clean that a lot of emphasis is on the
product, rather than the process.
And you completely divert from that, which is one of the things
I love about you. I think it's, for me, is getting
to the soul. Uh-huh.
I'm trying to reveal the soul that I use empathy.
To dig into the soul because I believe that that we all really
come from one. One place, you know.
Humans we've all read all just evolving on this Earth.
Everything is the same and that when we take off all the layers
of stuff and so if we can just get to those places of
commonality haha that there is this great stuff for you.
Being a Storyteller and are Stunned, A Healer are very much
the same thing and that I think is so resonant, and you and your
work and something that you are trying to impart to others.
Now, as you teach, because again, for me in my artistic
life, I think there has been a lot of this pressure to be an
artist that just puts out something new that you've never
thought of before. Rather than something that we
resonates with everyone, and that connects us, And I think a
more cynical, you know, in the sense that I think that that
everything's already been created in one form or another
or it just for me, is much more worth my time to take in
everything and synthesize it. Let it synthesize and breathe in
your own body and then let it be.
So along those lines. What are you working on?
Now, Karen, I'm doing something completely different.
That is inspired. By my students who I'm needle,
felting a rug. And I before I moved to
Massachusetts, I never knew what needle felting was.
I never heard of it. I knew wet felting.
I knew Nuno felting. But, you know, needle felting is
this thing that most people sit and make like, little little
doll characters out of felt and little things like that, which I
don't like, but I immediately saw the potential of Oh, okay.
This is easy to make something you can make a design by
layering like much like you would do layering like you might
do in a quilt or something. But so you have the ability to
make shapes and and I it's been so many years since I've just
had the opportunity to explode with color, and I've been
needing to do something that was very free feeling.
And so and it's a very physical act because I take this Like
thing with eight needles and I just sit and pounded into wall.
But I was getting my life where I need this to get this
aggression out in just get it white after into the wall.
What I said is it is I'm making my Verna cornica wow.
And how inspired by the Amazon. Oh, so giant floral kind?
He's of things and colors and stuff.
Oh, that is exciting. Just that just kind of wild.
I think covid has allowed many of us to explore something that
is that is close to what we do but tangental or a new skill and
it's what it's doing is it's freeing me up because I have a
show coming up next year where I have to do a lot of my
historical pieces. And so I'm going to be sitting
in Evening and wow and I need to you know be doing this right now
to get to get this kind of energy out of my body so that
then I can just like going and settling her down.
Yeah. Can you tell us about the show?
Yeah, I'm pretty excited. The shows going to be and st.
Augustine Florida. Oh wow, at Flagler College and
st. Augustine is Is where one branch
of my of my ancestors are from. And this is the branch that I
am. Probably most known for because
I've done the most Research into this family and the white part
of the family, Trace back to England and Ireland in the early
1700s and it became an interracial family in the late
1700s and And so I have lots of individual stories of this
family and and their story is an interracial family began in st.
Augustine. And I just look at it is that
I'm part of this lineage of these women.
And because I knew to recognize the stories really do believe
that my ancestors chose me that they just went and they said
this one. This precocious child is the one
that can can do something with it.
They chose. Very well.
They really did like what a beautiful lineage.
What incredible stories and you do.
You hold them very well and in ways, you know, certainly in
your artwork ways, they would have never imagined visually
seeing it. Yeah, it's a pretty weird thing
to do. You've done so much incredible
work. Harvesting the information about
your ancestors, do you have any advice for someone who would
want to do the same? I tell people all the time, I
said, do digging dig. I'll, I believe that the story
that you're going to find the good, the bad, the ugly that you
have to accept all parts of it. That, you know, that we're all
humans. If you can't, if you don't have
the history right you know you don't know quite where to go.
If you have locations go and do research on the location because
that will be so satisfying in terms of picking, Hang up the
culture. If you were to find out that
your family was in a small community, in Eastern Europe,
and that history has been, you know, all but wiped out and you
can only pick up the area of the land, then then pick up the
energy of the land because the land pulled stories that, you
know, from my early research. When I walk down my very first
plantations, and You know, and I'm scared to death doing that
work. But as I did it, I started to
really feel for the first time and I was able to feel the same
kinds of things that I felt when I lived on on native land.
And it is that memory that every Rock, every, every bit of soil,
everything is just holding something that is such a
beautiful and true statement that I I think is is so deeply
important. You know, obviously part of the
point of the podcast is to encourage a connection to land
and two trees. So as to treat land and trees
and the people who care for them and live on them, treat it all.
Well so thank you for that statement.
It really feels as though you're continuing your own work and
also picking up the torch for your grandmother and making sure
other people. People still understand how to
work with the land. I hadn't thought about that.
But yeah, I think I'm doing it for like, all of my ancestors.
I'm just like, you know, I'm like making sure that the land,
the land base really continues and at the same time, scouting
and going. Okay, where's my piece of lamb.
Oh, I am so excited to find out what's next for you.
You know, we will see, you know, but we also Yes, but it's just
it's just that's how I look at life as I, I really look at, can
I in my time while I'm here on this Earth?
My goal is to make it a better place and that's well, that's
all I think about my think you do, and I'm really appreciate
you sharing these thoughts with me because I really resonate
with how you look at the world at Earth itself, such as soil,
and land, and art and storytelling.
Telling so Karen. Thank you so much for joining us
today. Thank you.
This was really lovely. We're going to close again with
just taking a deep breath to feel grounded and to bring us
back. So taking your time Thank you so
much, Karen. I think I could speak with Karen
all the live long day, and I'm so glad that she shared just a
few of her wonderful stories with us.
And now, for today's tree takeaways, where I share a
little bit more about the tree we met today, as mentioned
earlier, many Native American communities view, the black
walnut, as a symbol for Gathering new energy, Clarity,
and focus indeed. Indigenous individuals have
gained the benefits of walnuts long before European explorers
arrived. While walnuts.
Order term are said to date, all the way back to the Hanging
Gardens of Babylon. The black walnut tree is native
to North America. So you might think that such a
large tree immediately bears fruit, but that is not the case.
Black walnut trees take 10 to 15 years to produce fruit and they
are biennials meaning that they produce their Bounty.
Every other year, Mary Oliver, one of my favorites has a famous
poem titled, the black walnut tree.
You can actually read it in the show.
Show notes, which alludes to the fact that the wood of the tree
itself is highly desired. It is indeed a hot prize easily
worked, the dense and beautiful. Hardwood has long been valued by
furniture and cabinet makers for its color and strength and the
interior wood of the walnut tree fetches, a premium price on
today's market so much so that there are walnut tree thieves.
I read one story where in Oklahoma rustlers dressed as
landscapers, I waited until a household went off to work,
rolled up with trucks and heavy equipment outside the house,
chop down the tree and left in the light of day.
And the neighbors simply said, well, I thought you were just
doing landscaping. So, yes, walnut trees are a hot
commodity protect your trees, folks beyond the food and the
wood, the tree has been used in other ways.
The husks of the Walnut have been a source of ink for artists
such as Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt.
Maybe there's a bit of not in the Mona, Lisa, who knows?
They've even served in Wars as airplane, propellers, that's how
resilient they are walnuts themselves, sort of resemble the
brain, the outside looking, like a membrane, the inside, like the
brain itself and then fact, they are one of the best foods for
brain Health and Longevity. Maybe all of this information
together as why the Romans called walnuts the food of the
Gods, I keep thinking about Karen's work.
As an artist myself, I feel the For my work to be perfect and
Polished. And Karen's work, is not
concerned. With that Karen's worked
absence, who the soul her work is rooted in connection, not
Perfection, finding authenticity and beauty and Truth by leaning
into our stories, which are big and bold and heart-wrenching,
and playful, and messy. And I find such beauty in that
even more. So that she feels that her
ancestors chose Is her to do this work and I wonder what my
ancestors may want me to do. Do you ever wonder that, what
your ancestors, ask you? So as we go into this week,
think about what you're planting maybe it's an idea of maybe it's
a hope. Maybe it's an actual tree or
flowers. What are you planting this week?
Tell someone the story about that.
Let's keep these conversations going.
We are grateful to have spoken with care and Hampton during our
Premier episode. You can learn more about her at
www.ktdrr.org nets aham PTO n.com.
This week's episode was recorded in Massachusetts, on the native
lands of the wabanaki Confederacy, Penacook
Massachusetts and Pawtucket people and was produced by
Jonathan's out, Nur and a light theater.
Guild logo designed by Mill Riot.
Please join us for the rest of the spring season, as we
continue to hear more about various trees from various
voices. Most of all learn more about us
at tree speech, podcast.com and on Instagram with the handle
tree speech, podcast. I'm Dory Robinson.
Thanks for joining tree speech today.