Sam Van Aken is an artist. He is a visual artist, a painter, and a sculptor, but he does not work with the traditional tools of the mediums. No; Van Aken’s canvas is nature itself.
Through the intricate and complicated process of grafting, the art professor from Syracuse University has created trees with the ability to produce not just one, but 40 types of rare and heirloom fruits, including peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, cherries, and almonds.
The concept resulted from an earlier project in which Van Aken planted a range of fruits and vegetables that would bloom simultaneously in different colours. When funding eventually dried up, he decided to condense the orchard into a single tree.
Growing up as part of a farming community in Pennsylvania, he’d seen grafting take place as a child, but the practicality of the process never managed to weed out the magic he saw in it.
While some may argue the utilitarian function of the Tree of 40 Fruit means that it should not be considered art – they often cite Kant’s Critique of Judgement, essentially claiming that since we still recognise it as a tree that performs the functions of a tree, therefore it is a tree, and a tree is not a work of art – Van Aken argues otherwise.
“The project, for me, is always an art project,” he told National Geographic. That’s why the 16 trees that have been planted since 2008 can be found in public areas around the US. Throughout most of the year, the trees appear just like any other, but when they blossom (Van Aken has grafted in such a way that each fruit flowers at the same time) those people who have walked past them every single day are compelled to stop and gaze in wonderment. It is a celebration of the power of transformation, and the unseen beauty all around us.
Each tree is grown for three years, but the entire process leading up to the point where a tree is yielding optimal fruit takes eight to nine years. That means that around early 2017, the first Trees of 40 Fruit will be at their best.
Van Aken says one of the best parts about the project is that his work is an evolving artform. Like any artist, he is working through drafts with strengths and weaknesses, and there’s no doubt the best is yet to come. He hopes to sell the trees via his art gallery in the years to come, before building an heirloom orchard through which he can guide visitors as an introduction to growing their own trees.
Speaking at TEDx Manhattan in 2014, Van Aken had more to say about how he raised the Tree of 40 Fruit. Check it out.