Windswept Tree
A collaboration between Corina Duyn and Bernadette Meehan Morris
Corina
The fabric is a piece of my trousers which I wore at the Puppetry and Disability talks in the UK in 2018. I lost a lot of weight since moving into care, that the trousers no longer fitted. I cut it up and mostly used it for the suitcase which became the title piece of the ‘I brought the dream of flying’ exhibition at GOMA January 2023. A last piece was big enough to put into the loop to stitch my tree….
I started it maybe in 2022? Caroline (Schofield) helped me to draw the design on the fabric. I loved working on it. But it became too difficult a job. My hands wouldn’t cooperate. I kept it in the dresser with a small box of the yarn. Many threads have memories attached of my weaving years, puppetry and all that.
Late December 2024 I was doing a good clear out of many things. Including few remaining craft materials I no longer used, or could use. I can’t explain the real reason for the clearing out, but letting go is always good.
The sewing materials, yarns, threads, beads etc. went to Bernadette who had made me this beautiful little bag in response to my book ‘In Bed I Cut Words’. It was/is a piece of art. Every bit made with such detail and care. A piece one keeps exploring and finding hidden gems.
The box of materials included the unfinished Tree stitching.
Little did I know what was to follow...
Where it all began
Image from 14th September 2022
Bernadette
The beginnings of this piece or the story behind its emergence remain unknown to me for now. I received it in a little box of sewing materials from my fellow ME sufferer, just after Christmas….
The brown box arrived unexpectedly in the post. It was January 3rd 2025.
This is how I responded to the sender’s little handwritten note inside the box…
Corina,
Thank you so much. I was speechless when I opened your gorgeous gift.
I absolutely love these. I can feel the precious joy and nostalgic moments you have experienced while working with these threads and yarns. They live on in this box of treasure. I will certainly continue to use them with divine pleasure and gratitude.
I hope you are doing OK Corina.
Big hugs & love Bernadette
Corina replied...
Am very grateful they are received with such love. Much have lived in my dresser for use… one day ... By other hands … ... My body is struggling.
... Enjoy. Enjoy.
PS, And maybe you can finish my tree someday.
Much love. And health. And peace of mind
Corina
And that is how my chapter working with Windswept Tree began.”
Bernadette contd.
I very soon became aware that this piece of work was drawing me into its essence with ease.
Its beautiful gentle insistence on emerging from some creative source was generous and it felt to me like a source overflowing with abundance.
I sensed an intriguing complexity of juxtaposing energetic elements and a crisscrossing of a multitude of different emotions within its becoming and within my experience of enabling this little tree to express itself.
I absolutely loved the process and felt so strongly connected to its unique voice.
There were only three colours in the pallet I was choosing from. Browns, taupe and a tiny bit of moss green would later become the visable shades from the viewer perspective. But in fact, there are reds, silver, and rust/orange in the multi layering of threads in the branches and trunk.
The moss green/yellow were used very sparingly and only on the fine fibrous roots and the moss on the surface of the soil beneath the tree. (Fibrous roots are the fine network of systems responsible for absorbing all the necessary nutrients and water from the soil).
The lively playfulness of the entwining branches felt like an expression of the spirit of earlier seasons of youthful active emerging and growth. A process that had occurred in the distant past years before a more mature fixing into the final shape. As I worked on this project, it was constantly revealing a depth of ancient almost ancestral wisdom.
That intrigued me.
19cm
1
Bernadette contd.
I am so deeply grateful to Corina and this little windswept tree. Grateful for giving me the opportunity to complete her work. Grateful for the joy of meandering so slowly through the insistent way it persuaded me to face and acknowledge challenging emotions that lie dormant inside all of us while we winter in our personal development and growth. I am still immensely impacted by a sense of tearfulness that occurs each time I spend time looking at this piece or a photo of it. It has yet to be revealed to me what exactly that tearfulness means or what has been stirred-up deep within me.
I am, and always have been passionate about nature in all its forms and in the care taking and preservation of our natural habitats and environment.
The exquisite complexity and highly evolved intelligence of ecological systems in the minute formation of algae and fungi is so magnificent. The ability of mosses to grow and thrive in such impoverish conditions and it’s adaptive behavior in order to survive is to me the very essence of life and living.
Mitochondrial dysfunction in ME sufferers is, we are told a major problem. Mitochondria are the energy creation mechanism within every cell in our bodies. When I fully understand every living organism has mitochondrial centers within them, we can easily comprehend we are all collectively one interconnected living system. Deeply interdependent on each other. In every species mitochondria are essential to generate energy for humans, plants and animals…..
When we consider mitochondria originated from free-living aerobic bacteria that were enveloped by ancestral cells and set up a mutually beneficial relationship called symbiosis.
These microscopic cellular processes and their evolution are what gives me cause for optimism and absolute awe for life and living despite how our bodies are functioning or malfunctioning as we might say.
This illness appears to shrink our abilities our environment, our lives.
But throughout the 21 years of me being ill with ME, I have come to realize that within smallness and slowness there are so many opportunities for adjusting to look more closely and more deliberately. So rather than simply lamenting the vastness and the abundance I experienced in my healthy-body life, I now see that enforced lingering presents surprising challenges that often bring interesting outcomes and rewards.
Mystery Illness
No one knows the answers
The questions
Remain beautifully
Painfully delicately poised
Interrogate them Or ignore them
And they’ll fall away
Hidden
Shattered
On the earth
Earth isn’t their dwelling place???
Bernadette Meehan Morris - April 24th 2025
“Yesterday, I finally finished your windswept tree.
I can’t tell you how I relished working on it. There are so many things
I would love to chat with you about it when I feel better.
I absolutely adore this little piece of work...
It has an extraordinary deep gentle but profoundly strong energy.
I can sit holding it and absorbing it for ages - it holds so much of its own depths, it’s secrets, it’s origins hidden but somehow it still feels alive in its nature.
It feels like a very deep, incredibly resilient ancient soul.
Corina, I think you should have it back now.”
Bernadette Meehan Morris
Reflections
‘Looking at the back of ’Windswept’ where all the threads are perfectly ordered I suddenly see an egg in a nest!’
Moira Dillon - ME Advocate and curator of the ME Artists Online Exhibition
‘Eggs are so symbolic - fertility, rebirth, new beginnings, carriers of potential... Eggs also feature a lot in Corina’s work.
The circles for me, could be kind of a representation of the circles of a very old tree trunk. years of nurture, easy years, severe weather hardships.
Disease Healing, Deep wisdom....’
Bernadette Meehan Morris
‘Seeing the finished work I marvel at the moss at the base of the tree, the fine roots. The strength in the tree’s apparent fragility. The beauty and significance of the treads at the back.
This accidental collaboration from our beds across the island of Ireland brought us to a place of deep questioning and understanding, which continued months after its completion.’
Corina Duyn
Credits:
Words and images ©Corina Duyn and ©Bernadette Meehan Morris.
Read the story behind the artists work here: https://corinaduyn.blogspot.com/2025/11/windswept-tree.html?m=1
Acknowledgments
This collaboration was featured in the online art exhibition for ME Awareness Day, 12th May 2025 in which both artists also had their individual work included. You can view this exhibition titled ‘Life with ME - ‘Bring ME out of the Shadows’ at the following link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2e6i8KkNdYg
Design:
David Murphy - Red Heaven Design - www.redheavendesign.com
