GET GRAFTED, 2025

Photo credit: Judson Felder

“Grafting is a process by which two separate plants are cut, and then re-attached, in a way that allows them to grow together. But when the attachment is made, they don’t forego their origins and become one new thing — they retain the unique qualities of where they came from forever.

In my version, a section of a highly detailed carving gets attached to a highly weathered and worn piece of scrap wood. What grows out the other side is a new thing, a third thing, that appears entirely out of serendipity, improvisation, and effort.

While I can’t say where these things came from specifically, I can definitely say what they make me think about. And that’s about holding onto my dad’s hands. An example: as a walker-in-training, my dad offered me his hand to hold as he walked beside me. All I could manage to grasp was his little finger, which enough — I was tiny, and he was large, and all it took was that one finger ushering me forward to make me feel safe.

Funny how the relationships we all have with our parents may be complex, now, but they all started off pretty simple: they held us up so we didn’t fall on our faces.

Time passed, as it does, and soon I needed other things from my dad, and the hand holding faded away. Then one day, he needed things from me. One day after that, he was holding my hand. By then he was 90. His hand was small, and smooth and warm. When I held my hand out to him, I wondered if he had the same sensation I did, the same thought gurgle up, back when our roles were reversed, which was this: it’s okay if you hold on forever. The grafted pieces take a part of that memory, and that loss, and tries to move it into something new, and living.”

—Dan Webb