Help Re-create the Log Drive

Dimensions: 20 x 4’
Materials: Plywood, paint, thousands of little sticks
Location: Skowhegan, ME
Date: 2000
Description: Collaborated with townspeople attending the Skowhegan Log Days Festival, an annual event that celebrates the town’s history and culture as a logging community. Community members attending the Log Day events were invited to re-create the log drive by adding small sticks (representing logs) to a 20-foot freestanding replica of the Kennebec River’s path through the town of Skowhegan. This re-creating of the river filled with logs revealed a collective memory of Skowhegan’s lost logging industry, an industry that helped define the culture of the town, and acted as a catalyst for discussion between the older generations that were part of the log drives and the younger generations that were born after the log drives had ended. Completed during Skowhegan residency.