Curated by Steven and William Ladd

One longtime staff member said, “This feels like a bridge between where we’ve been and where we’re going.”

Matilda McQuaid, a longtime supporter and visionary curator, offered an opportunity we couldn’t resist: a commission for LongHouse Reserve’s first major outdoor sculpture. We had just purchased 19 acres in Germantown, New York—a place filled with cedar trees, wild grasses, and memories waiting to be made. As we cleared a space for three sheds, the scent of cut cedar transported us back to our grandmother Frances Hill’s cedar chest, where she kept magical fabrics. Those smells, textures, and memories became foundational to our artmaking.

Slicing small discs from the cedar trunks—“cookies”—we experimented with methods for connecting them. Mesmerized by each disc’s natural rose and purple hues and inspired byour grandmother’s textiles, we decided to weave the wood into a structure. At first, we tried wire. Then, during a trip to Home Depot, we thought about how we needed a simple, fast, and accessible way to attach the cedar cookies—and zip ties popped into our minds. They were flexible, textured, and unexpectedly beautiful.