ASH TREE: DEATH BY EMERALD ASH BORER

My intension is to build awareness about the slow death and probable extinction of North America’s favorite tree, the Ash Tree, due to the invasive/introduction of the EMERALD ASH BORER.

Following its discovery in the late 90s in the Detroit area, it has destroyed tens of millions of Ash Trees.

The sculpture displays an actual Ash Tree, damaged wood and over 100 actual Emerald Ash Borer insects (dead, of course) invading this sculpture.

In approximately two years, a single ravenous insect would initially land onto the Ash Tree and lay up to 90 eggs onto the bark crevices. The developed predatory larva then eats its way through the under bark, making s-trail pattern galleries as it separates the bark from the tree’s nutrient food source; thus, ultimately killing the tree!

The mature insect emerges through the outside bark forming a distinctive D-shaped exit hole (the shape of the actual insect) and flies away to the next Ash tree to continue the destructive pattern.

The stylized aluminum tree trunk depicts the decorative s-trails and D-shaped exit holes, illustrating the removed bark, which happens after the tree is dying.

Ash Tree furniture, Ash Tree baseball bats, Ash Tree broom handles will be a thing of the past.

Soon only aluminum baseball bats, aluminum furniture and aluminum tool handles will permanently replace what was once made from the beautiful hardwood of the Ash Tree.

My prediction is that within the next 20 years we will no longer have this beautiful hardwood tree.

Carolyn Saus Balogh received her Bachelor of Fine and Applied Arts in Metalsmithing at the University of Akron in Ohio.

She attended Penland School of Crafts, Penland, North Carolina.

She was a jeweler at The Diamond Trading Company in Akron, Ohio.

She's currently Vice President of CCM Welding Inc., and a freelance artist.

Special thanks to:

Daniel Herms, The Ohio State University Department of Entomology, Professor and Interim Chairperson

Amy Stone, The Ohio State University Extension, Lucas County, Ohio

Tom Munn, arborist City of Hudson, Ohio