The friction between human form-making and its counterparts in nature is a primary focus of my landscape-based public art work. Humans mostly build things to stay square and true for as long as possible, but in nature everything is growing or dying, accreting or eroding, crystallizing or disintegrating. Tree roots buckle a sidewalk—an event so mundane, yet so rich in sculptural and metaphoric potential. I would explore how such frictions have played out for millennia on the stones of Rome. What sites carry deep truths about how cities age? What situations hold the seeds for sculptural amplification? And how do current trends in ecological urbanism relate to time frames measured in centuries? With these questions in mind I would develop ideas for one site in Rome and in Portland, either as paper projects or physical installations. Together they would spark a dialogue about what newer and older cities can learn from and offer each other—viscerally, temporally, poetically.