“Do not worry about your life".
This annual pilgrimage was built by me, Arthur Adamson, and my artist partner, Bjørg Bjøberg. We who are local artists of the Norwegian village called Balestrand located on the Sognefjord. A few years ago we were out walking and by accident we discovered an old farm road that had long been forgotten. This old road was quite unique in that it run parallel to the new main road and the actual fjord. We followed the trail as far as we could (with difficulty) and found it lead to the area known loacally as "Kvamsøy". Here is a wonderful natural area for locals to go to dip their feet in the shallow water or swim across to the small island - known as Kvamsøy Island. On this island is a stone church built around 1200 Ad. Actually it is the smallest island in the world that has its own church. Anyway we got the idea to restore this old farmers trail so that people could walk from the main village to Kvamsøy without having to walk along the main traffic road. The idea of the Worry Tree was from an art project I had put aside for many years as I did not really know what to do with it or where such an unusual piece of art/sculpture could be displayed. I was not even sure how to categorize it. The original idea was to make a comment about "how art is valued" and "how society worships money/materialism". I ma not particularly a religious person more rather that I believe in Christian values, or I should rather say the wisdom of Jesus life philosophy. Sharing, forgiveness, loving and so on. Somehow the two projects seem to fit together and after having a dream about princess Diana being buried on an island I saw that my "Worry Tree" could be displayed on Kvamsøy Island near to the church. Well, after numerous technical and legal hurdles, as well as dealing directly with the owners of the island, I finally got permission to display my Worry Tree on the island. Luckily the owners of Kvansøy were devout Christians and gave me 100 square yards of land on the island for free and eventually a special small building was made to house my Worry Tree sculpture. Then my partner and I applied for funding to restore the old farm path of which we got some but not much. Mostly it was myself with occasional volunteers who worked on the path and it took in all about 3 years to complete. This film is of the official opening by the local mayor of Balestrand. I must admit I was very nervous of what reaction my Worry Tree would get as I had decided not to give any explanation but I did tell that the idea was for people to hag their "worry" onto the cross sculpture using a Norwegian one krone coin to symbolize their worry. (One Krone is the lowest value coin and has a hole in the middle so it was perfect for this) In this way the sculpture would grow into something of its own design (as in I could not control where people would nail their coin). I even thought that when people saw the Worry Tree they might be offended, however I was wrong, because people embraced it for I think they saw it as a piece of spiritual art on which they could express their personal faith. The keys on the cross sybmolise that the key to having a happy life is to free ourselves from the fear of worry. we can mange to free. I hope you enjoy the film I made of the opening day.
