Scarlet Sims - Three Tree Generation: Oak in the Backyard, 2026

11x14 pencil drawing

A tree grew inside my head / A tree grew in. Its roots are veins / its branches nerves / thoughts its tangled foliage. Octavio Paz’s poem, A Tree Within, is what started this exhibition. 

Trees have long held a special place for the Irish side of my family – we believe they hold memories, open like doors to other places, grant wishes and reach from the underworld into heaven. Trees guarded sacred wells for the Celts, and in Mexico, there is a sacred tree that bleeds like blood. My Chicano father was not one for nature, nor for talking about family history or our folk magic, but even so – trees contain multitudes. Why else is there a “family tree” and a “tree of life.” Trees are magical. 

Particularly the oak tree, with its roots growing shallow and intertwined, represent community and family. A solitary oak is more likely to fall when the rest of the grove is cut down. A tree where even just one-fourth of its roots are cut is likely to perish. An oak whose roots are just damaged will lose its limbs along that same side. 

The works you see are of live oak trees and were drawn in pencil by my Irish-heritage grandmother, mother and myself and represent three generations of first-born daughters. I am now the only one left to remember.