This piece is part of a series called Between Soil and Sky--based on walks through Port Townsend, exploring the architectural relationships, fragility, and more-than-human influence.

I never had a treehouse but I’ve been drawing them for years. For me, they are a door into re-considering our conceptions around habitat and what it might be. This piece grew out of collecting houses on walks, and then retreating into the woods to breathe in the way that creatures were living unrestrained, messy, and beautifully entangled with one another. As I made this piece, I was reading Braiding Sweetgrass and began to let these words sink in:

“Philosophers call this state of isolation and disconnection “species loneliness”—a deep, unnamed sadness stemming from estrangement from the rest of Creation, from the loss of relationship.”

― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants