Red Bank Paw Paw Circle 2012-3
A Fieldfaring Project
Public Art Commission in conjunction with the exhibition Green Acres: Artists Farming Fields, Greenhouses and Abandoned Lots
Cincinnati Center for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati Ohio
Curated by Sue Spade
“Everything about it is odd and unforgettable. The leaves are among the largest in our sylva, and in the autumn, when they turn a butter yellow, they are the
mellowest of the season’s tones. As to the fruit, the better it grows, the uglier, for it is only when it is thoroughly mature, in the late fall, that it is edible.”
Peattie, A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America, 1950
The Red Bank Pawpaw Circle was commissioned for Green Acres: Artists Farming Fields, Greenhouses and Abandoned Lots in Cincinnati. The project was created in partnership with Peter Huttinger and Sam Dunlap with the Civic Garden Center, a city funded urban gardening initiative whose mission is to enrich lives through education, community beautification and environmental stewardship.
We situated the project within a large traffic median at the entrance to the neighborhood of Madisonville. We planted 19 pawpaw trees, drawn from four distinct cultivars, that were planted within a circular berm, designed using permaculture principles. This 50-foot circle of trees is an anchor for the food forest developed at this site by the Civic Garden Center and local citizens.
The Pawpaw, somewhat obscure, is America’s largest native fruit, and has been one of the primary foraging fruits in the Ohio river valley and beyond. Its cultivation spans a succession of indigenous cultures, as well as the early Anglo settlers. We link this isolated section of land located between two busy roads with a 1000-year-history, creating a circular land formation that will bear fruit to forage each year.
The Red Bank Pawpaw Circle serves both as a space for the seasonal collection of food, as well as an ongoing monument to the history of cultivation and gathering that span the layered histories of migration through the Ohio River valley. We designed the circle to grow up and fill in over the years creating a secluded space in the middle. The pawpaw fruit is the passion of a community of Ohio enthusiasts who are growers and stewards of this unsung native fruit.
In 2022, I return to Cincinnati to create signage and seating for eating and gathering the harvest.
























