Reciprocity

 

Nature replenishes my spirit in so many ways. Clean air and water. The simultaneous serenity and thrill while standing on the edge of millions of acres of public lands. Sunshine warming my face. The sound of rain on my rain jacket. Watching a bee fly; toads, deserts, murmuration.

Trees are an organism for which I am supremely grateful. I have always loved them, even before I could understand the depth of what that means.

On a grand scale, trees have sustained cultures for millennia. Closer to home and more personally, trees provide life-saving shelter, shade from the powerful sun, bone- and muscle-warming heat, magnificent beauty, the sound of wind moving through the leaves.

So I've been pondering lately, what do I give back to them? Indeed, what is the exchange between all of nature and myself? It did not take me long to make the connection.

A spotlight. Through my art and writing I shine a spotlight on the beauty, magnificence, importance, and cultural community that trees and forests provide; the very reasons we should be protecting, respecting and thanking them.

My hope is that my work will inspire others to broaden their interest in trees, to the point of finding themselves caring about trees in their own environment, maybe even becoming stewards of the land.

In the spirit of paying it forward, for the trees, click here for a beautifully made documentary created by a young Alaskan woman about the clear cutting of old growth forests in the Tongass National Forest of southeast Alaska.

Reciprocity.

A connection to place

 I think we’ve all known special places that have deep meaning for us personally.

 Maybe we don’t always recognize it at the time.  There are several natural places that are special to me, but those with the deepest roots are woven from my childhood memories.  Colors and shapes, smells and sounds, and textures like the tactile velvet of new buds or flaking limestone. 

 The memories stay vivid and strong – some more so, some less.  Most of them comforting, but some, not so much.   They speak of my relationships with nature.  They are both known and unknown, some barely lurking within my subconscious.  What I remember most are not the events, but the feelings those connections gave me.

Maple leaves, owl feather, hickory nuts, and wild grape.

This is a small nature sketch done years ago, somewhere in the mid-1980s, of things collected on a walk through Iowa woods.  It was mid-autumn, and the season gave me treasures and a near infinity of browns and buff, with splashes of red and yellow.  Along the trail: leaves on limb and ground, sticks and branches and trunks and bark, seeds and frost-bitten fruits, empty acorn caps and sometimes a glimpse of gritty green. 

 The woods I rambled in are located in upper northeast Iowa, along a limestone ridge and bluff above a river.   It is a place of meditation, of quietness threaded with birdsong.   This is also a connection to a point in time.  Fall is a favorite season of mine; it feels like an important transition somehow, and I sometimes catch my breath waiting for the next thing to come.

It feels like a time to let life unwind, and a place to rest and heal. 

A sacred place.

 

Media:

Paper - unknown mass-produced watercolor paper pad
Watercolor paint, probably Grumbacher and/or Winsor & Newton
     (the colors still surprisingly bright after almost 40 years)
Craft brushes
# 2 Pencil