Every tree holds a story, some hold memories and beliefs: Marcel Proust’s narrator fell into a ‘remembrance of things past’ after dropping his madeleine in the tea made from the flowers of a linden tree…each growth lawyer of il Ciliegio Magico contains a bit of the air from the land where I grew up: La Brianza, the place I left when I moved to the U.S. The Magical Cherry Tree project was part of a year long "Artist in Residence" at Villa Firenze in Washington D.C. Using the old traditions of embroidery, oil painting, natural dyeing and printmaking, I have explored the theme of Nature and place in an ideal dialogue between two ancient cherry trees, whose roots symbolically touch despite being thousands of miles apart: il Ciliegio Magico, a national monument rooted in my beloved native Italy, and the majestic Magical Cherry tree in Villa Firenze's garden, the residence of the Italian Ambassador to the U.S.

"The genesis and history of Kikki’s meeting with the two trees, of her connection with their essence, with their ‘voices’, unfolds like the pages of a book, beginning by describing the first meeting, the sharing, the complicity, the challenges, as well as the balance, the path and the opening towards the Infinite. Kikki opens a door for us to let in a gleam of light – which is blinding at first and from which we instinctively repair our eyes, yet, as we  get accustomed to its intensity, it enables us to see a deeper dimension, which is nurturing and joyful. This  awe-inspiring and intrinsic spirituality in Kikki’s works is one of her artistic strengths. Imaginative intelligence lives in the heart, and through the power of imagination the  intelligence of the heart unifies knowledge and love: this is what Kikki Ghezzi enables us to see" […] Renato Miracco