Majesty Tree Weave

The Majesty Tree Weave is a residential commission constructed in a single, behemoth Live Oak located in Austin, Texas. The purple color of the tree net woven within the sprawling oak’s boughs and branches highlights the monolithic oak’s majesty. As one climbs throughout the woven spaces, traveling through portals and wavy matrices, the ground beneath slowly becomes forgotten. Exploring the varied dimensions leads to discoveries of restful bowls to lounge, and infinity loops bringing one up and over branches, around corners, and terminates in the highest crown of the canopy, about thirty feet off the ground. At this highest point rests a pink crow’s nest where the rolling topography of Hill Country can be seen for miles beyond the West Lake neighborhood. 

Our Majesty installation was created in two stages. The first short phase utilized previous methods of bolting, tensioning static rope, and fully weaving the rope perimeters with paracord. In the first short stage, we created five vertical steps spanning between two massive branches of the live oak with bolts and paracord, that led to a small section woven in purple and goldenrod paracord.

In the six months between the start of this project and our return, we transitioned from drilling holes in trees and plugging them with bolts, to supporting our nets with tubular webbing from the crotches of branches. Although bolting is not invasive to trees, it is incredibly time-consuming, and limits the dimensionality of the planes throughout the completed piece. We found that the versatility and strength of webbing allows us to generate stunning curvature, and leads to a more organic, improvisational process that opens our minds to new discoveries within the possibilities of weaving trees.

When we returned to the net, we ascended ropes high up into the canopy of the tree, and ran long strands of tubular webbing from branch to branch, allowing the natural features of the tree to influence the direction of the multi-dimensional spaces that emerged. As more strands go in, the shapes we can form become more visible to our imaginations. We spend many hours discussing, brainstorming, and strategizing our output. We enjoy the organic, improvisational and emergent process that is gifted by these trees, and capitalized with webbing.