In the latest issue of American Craft, I was delighted to find a short article about a group of creative Midwesterners re-thinking how to use one of the most available materials in Detroit – the “ghetto palm.”

I admit that over the years I have uttered an unsavory word over this particular plant known as Ailanthus altissima, which seems to always create some kind of inconvenience when it appears in the corner of your yard or in the middle of a beautiful bed of Daylilies.

I’m always intrigued when someone is able to unravel one of my long-standing notions of value, and the Detroit Tree of Heaven Woodshop has spun my way of looking at the “ghetto palm”  on its head.

The concept behind this ingenuitive group of artists and researchers is to re-imagine the potential for a much undervalued and overlooked raw material. The “ghetto palm” has been known to infiltrate inner cities in a weed-like fashion, and its abundance inspired founders Mitchell Cope, Ingo Vetter, and Annette Weisser to find ways to process this medium and use it in furniture and vessels.

Since 2005, the Tree of Heaven Woodshop has been steadily re-fashioning how we think about wood as a raw material and its relationship to our inner cities.

One begins to wonder if there is something else right under our noses, and all that is necessary is to observe with a new sense of awareness.

To learn more about the process, see exhibitions, and find connections visit the website, www.treeofheavenwoodshop.com.