The American sculptor Sam Van Aken conceived the “tree of 40 fruits” as a kind of natural Frankenstein. The tree, which has already been planted in different locations in the United States, is the product of an idea that wanted to mix unusual media, something very common in artists. In this case, instead of brushes and pencils, we have trees and fruits.
The ‘Tree of 40 Fruit’ project consists of a series of hybrid fruit trees. Through grafting, Van Aken, who is also an art professor at Syracuse University in New York, USA, has grown more than 40 varieties of fruits such as plums, apricots and cherries, on a single tree. Each tree produces 40 types of stone fruits, of the genus Prunus , which ripen sequentially from July to October in this country.
“ I wanted to have a tree that would bloom in different colors, ” says Van Aken, who learned about grafting as a child. “I saw my grandfather do it, and it was the most magical and incredible thing I have ever seen. He took a branch from a peach tree and put it on another tree. He said, ‘wait here, and by next spring it will start to grow and it will become another branch ‘, and indeed that happened “.
That family background in agriculture led Van Aken to use this curious medium to create art.
Since the project began about eight years ago, it has created more than twenty 40-fruit trees , most of which are on display in North America, whether in community gardens, museums, or private collections (in Arkansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania …). Others have traveled to Sweden and even China.
Van Aken’s intention is to manipulate nature to enhance its beauty. This type of initiative has its determining factor: to see if a graft has borne fruit, you have to wait years and be very careful with pruning and the strategic areas where the grafts are placed, as well as working around the growth cycle of each fruit that is used.
“The Tree of 40 Fruit” exhibits enhance a tree’s spring beauty, with flowers radiating a spectrum of vibrant pastel colors.
“ Seeing the trees in spring every year is still a surprise to me. When you see them in bloom … they are evolving, they are changing. Every year, each individual tree becomes different,” Aken clarifies.
Apart from the multiple colors that these hybrid trees show, they offer all kinds of fruits on the same tree: peaches, apricots, plums, cherries, nectarines … As we have seen, the artist ‘designs’ each of the trees, selecting species that flourish and produce fruit at different times of the year to take advantage of their full potential and beauty. Thus, in one season, plums and nectarines grow; in another apricots and cherries and so on.
Van Aken’s ultimate goal is to place small urban orchards full of these trees all over the planet, something that can increase the diversity of fruits in general, as well as fulfill his other desire to spread his art globally and that everyone who comes across with one of these trees ask questions about its origin.
(Images credit: Courtesy of Van Aken) http://www.treeof40fruit.com
