Familiar Trees

This posting is actually a response to the interview with photographer Robert Adams that aired on Art:21 last Sunday evening. I was struck by the juxtaposition of Mark Dion's work with Adam's since both artists address the conflict between nature and culture through their work, but represent this conflict through very different means. Dion's installations emphasize the incredible human effort that it takes to mimic the simplest process of nature-decay. Dion's work, based on the aesthetic and conventions of modern science, is cool and removed. Adam's takes a more traditional approach to photography, working hard to place the subject matter in the proper context, with the appropriate distance, and waiting for those surprising moments, the punctum, to appear. What was fascinating was that this reserved, cautious practice was coupled with Adams intensely felt words about the environment, art and beauty. He argues without cynicism or naivete (in words and images) that "beauty is the confirmation of meaning in life" (to read more, go to: http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/adams/clip2.html). My response in images to Adam's works/words were taken this afternoon in the Seminary Woods.

Tracing the Woods

After several months away from this project, I had the wonderful (and sometimes frustrating) experience of revisiting all of the digital photographs of the woods that I made this summer. On the last day, we took one of the paper backdrops that I typically cut apart (see portfolio link) up into the woods with some strange results. I particularly liked the way the backdrop collects light in this image, but is also dwarfed by the enormity of the space.

Place as 'Strata'

I came across this quote and thought it relevant to this debate about place, art and history:

"The kind of difference that defines every place is not on the order of a juxta-position but rather takes the form of imbricated strata."

-Quote from Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life.

New York: Day Five

My End is your beginning is my end.(2006) at the Cue Art Foundation Gallery in Chelsea, open until July 28th. For more info:

Ludlow, MA: Day Three

On our last day in Ludlow, Jeremy and I take some of the backdrop paper up the mountain and put it to use. The plan was to use the backdrop to isolate out natural objects, but there was a strange tonal and material syncrony between the trees, the low light, and the pale green paper (made in part, of course, from trees). So eventually, we dragged the paper down the hill as it gathered dirt and imrpints of rocks.

Ludlow, MA: Day Two

On a rainy Saturday morning, we can't get up the mountain because of the mud sliding down the hill from the new developments. Instead, I photograph the natural patterns inside the house while my grandma bakes shortcake and works on a crossword. It is one of those wonderful mornings that seems to last all day. Eventually, we get restless and drive to the next exit on the Pike (Chicopee) to check email at Starbucks.

Ludlow, MA: Day One

After a short drive from NH, we arrive in Ludlow and head straight up the mountain, and begin photographing the many property markers on the hill. We spend the next day struggling to figure out where the family property begins and ends.

Hopkinton, NH

After driving three days in constant rain and making a quick detour to Maine, we arrived in Hopkinton just in time to see the tree behind my Aunt's barn get struck by lightening. I spent the following day photographing her house, the barn and the graveyard across the street. I use the photographs to collect and document patterns. The barn is 215 years old. The images posted are the outside and inside of the barn.

Pine Flat by Sharon Lockhart

In late April, I had the opportunity to see Sharon Lockhart's film "Pine Flat" (2005) at UWM and never had the opportunity to write about it at that time. The film continues to stick with me, because of the questions is raises about how to depict the relationship between people and the natural world in contemporary art. The landscape in "Pine Flat" has all of the enormity and romanticism of Asher Durand's "Kindred Spirits" (1849) and the figures are positioned similarly. The young teens, often alone, in the woods are engulfed by their surroundings. However, unlike WIlliam Cullen Bryant and Thomas Cole depicted in "Kindred Spirits," the youths in Lockhart's film appear distracted--picking at the grass, reading a book, pushing each other off a swing. The landscape is not the focus of their attention. As a result, it becomes a backdrop for the individuals whose smallest gestures seem to send ripples through the space around them. This effect is magnified by the duration of each shot (10 Minutes) and the patience, focus and commitment of the viewer to the individual in the image. Watching "Pine Flat" was like watching a painting.

Drawing a Blank

This weekend I went to a conference at the Center for 21st Century Studies, where two critics/historians discussed the idea of the blank page and the blank screen as a reoccurring symbol of femininity in the work Man Ray and Andy Warhol. The feminine as a surface to be inscribed. The feminine as a blank space onto which we can project meaning. Both authors described their theories on these works as a purposeful step away from the dialectics of language and psycholanalytic theory that position female as absent and male as present. It was difficult position for both to defend, but it was exciting for the audience to even think of the possibility of moving on from this dualism. However, can this be done without a serious memory lapse? Do we risk forgeting that these dualities are the building blocks of langauge? What if this form of language is still in practice? Or perhaps we should froget Lacan immediately, he has done enough damage and it is time for another direction(s).

I wonder if this doesn't also apply to the landscape? Can we think of space/place as something aside from a blank space to be inscribed/developed? These signs have been up outside my house for months now. The city covered over the "No parking" signs on our street because neighbors compained after being ticketed for parking more than two hours in front of their own houses. I often thought about what I could draw, pin, tape or paint over these surfaces. As the months dragged on I realized that these "blank signs" meant to cover over existing information were anything but blank.

Inside the Scenic Backdrop

My research on the New England landscape as told by artists and writers focused on two sources, the Hudson River School paintings of Thomas Cole and the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Of these two artists' works, I am particularly interested in Cole's painting The Oxbow: View from Mt. Holyoke, Northampton, after a Thunderstorm (1836) and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850). Initial comparisons between these works revealed two very different conceptions of the New England Landscape. In the Scarlet Letter, the forest is a chimerical character whose appearance reflects the motives of the human beings who enter into it. For Hester Prynne, the woods represent a space outside the realm of societal control. It is here that she dares to remove her "scarlet letter" by casting the embroidered letter onto the forest floor. For Robert Chillingworth, the woods are the source and symbol of his devious nature. The shadowy forest provides the ingredients that Chillingworth uses to slowly poison Hester's lover, the Reverend Dimmesdale. These portrayals of the woods are important to the telling of the story of the Scarlet Letter; yet, they are familiar depictions of the woods as either good or evil, corresponding to human nature. Between these two poles, the character Pearl's "indistinguishable" nature allows for Hawthorne to reimagine the woods as a liminal space. For instance, through her play in the woods, Pearl transforms the twigs and stones into representations of the puritan elders with whom she retells her version of the Scarlet Letter. The woods become a tool for reimagining her own role within society. Of the three images of the woods which Hawthorne offers in the Scarlet Letter, Pearl's character and her experience of the woods suggest a critical framework based not on dualities, but on the playful transformation of existing materials. Pearl's interaction with the forest offers a new model for an art theory and practice that is both informed by and transformed by a natural landscape.

In comparison to the indeterminacy of the woods in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Thomas Coles' The Oxbow depicts the New England landscape with empirical certainty. Coles' richly painted landscape of the Oxbow river valley outside North Hampton captures every detail from the leaves on the trees to the texturing of the stones along the river. Coles' work combines his knowledge of botany with his study of European history painting to create a lush wilderness of mythical proportions. His goal as a painter was to depict the American landscape as having a rich history, as well as a profitable future. The viewer in Coles' paintings is in a position of control, situated high above the landscape, looking down into the valley; the viewer remains at a safe distance from the wilderness without delving into its shadowy realms. The point of view from which the entire panorama is visible suggests human beings are in a position of control over nature through the observational tools of science.

Although this conception of Coles' paintings is accurate and remains an important part of the discussion of his work, art historians, such as Barbara Novak in Nature and Culture: American Landscape Painting:1825-1875, have recently emphasized that Coles' paintings were also a response to the spread of industrialization beyond the confines of major cities into small New England towns. Novak argues that Coles' work could be reinterpreted as a plea for preserving the landscape, rather than exploiting it. The positioning of the viewer in Coles' painting The Oxbow high above the landscape remains a position of control, but perhaps with that control also comes responsibility. I am not interested in choosing between these two conceptualizations of Coles' work, but rather in that they present two conflicting views on how to design a utopian industrial center or pastoral retreat.

These conflicting views on Coles' The Oxbow resonate with current discussions about how to develop the woods of Western Massachusetts. For instance, in the town of Ludlow, Massachusetts, several generations of my family have worked in the same local factories that Cole feared would overrun the natural landscape. What remains of the surrounding forests is quickly disappearing as new housing developments are built. This moment in American history, similar to the time period just prior to industrialization, allows a brief window of opportunity to reconsider earlier attitudes towards the wilderness and to allow this information to change current attitudes about development.

In several previous works, I have adopted a similar approach to Coles' work by “repainting” sections of his landscapes in a new format. Coles' paintings are monumental in scale and vivid in color. When I repaint portions of these works, I transform them into small paintings that are portrait size and use only neutral tones. I typically use unbleached titanium paint which is normally used only used for underpaintings. The translation of these large works into intimate studies allows me and the viewer time to rethink how the landscape is portrayed in these works. This process also enables me to carefully reimagine and reconstruct the perspective of the artist at that time.

Un/building

I have been thinking about the structures up on the Mountain and how different they are from the giant new homes constructed only a few feet away. The first difference is that one is brand new, made of synthetic materials, and vacant. The other is old--a ruin--made of natural materials from the woods, and is not vacant or full because it has no inside or outside. I am aware of the long history of artists and art historians fetishizing ruins or transforming them into triggers for a wave of nostalgia, but that is not my purpose here. I am interested instead in how these ruins in our own backyard suggest an interaction with the landscape that is not an obstacle. You can move freely around, in and out of these non-structure structures Their intended function is no longer known or remains unfinished, enough to let the person who happens across them in the woods the opportunity to imagine multiple uses for such places--was it a still? Was it a cabin? Was it a well? Or a home? They are so much more present that the new homes. Even in their decay they are thriving, vivid documents of the bodies of the people who made them.