The Heartwood Moon was installed at the Small Arms Inspection Building in winter 2021 as part of the Mississauga Festival of Trees, curated by CreativeHub 1352.

With its cold, shortened days, winter can be a time of darkness, hibernation and withdrawal, but the bright winter moon reminds us that this is only a phase in the seasonal calendar. In the winter, the Earth is tilted away from the sun, and towards the moon. Although this angle from the sun chills the landscape, it is balanced by the winter moon, which gives us long, beautifully lit nights as it takes a high path through the sky.

This installation used the Norwegian technique of stacking firewood in a circular pile as a framework for a lunar calendar. The ends of stacked wood pieces were charred, or dyed using natural materials, referencing the darkness of the night sky. The phases of the moon are represented by log rounds, which were hollowed out through a combination of natural and manual processes, and placed at even intervals in the ring of stacked wood. The negative space of the log rounds became the cycling of the moon phases as we moved from the dark new moon to the full moon, and then repeat the cycle.