The Festival of the Trees 28 - Art and Arboreality

Welcome to the Festival of the Trees 28 – Art and Arboreality.

Thank you to all the contributors for so many delicious, tree-inspired creations!

Art and Arboreality is illustrated thanks to the kind permission of Canadian artist Linda Lovisa, a talented painter and forest-listener whom I discovered via Eric Keast of Broken Vulture Art. As you wander through the Festival, I invite you to take a moment to investigate each window Linda creates into the forest, and let yourself be inspired.

~~~ OF AIR ~~~

I am blessed with this really awesome friend by the name of Ann Vetter-Hansen. Like Linda Lovisa, Ann Vetter-Hansen is also the kind of artist who opens windows into beautiful places:

"Do you feel it?

The glory that is fall approaches! I can practically feel my cells vibrating with glee. I have tentatively located sources for apples, quince and blue grapes locally. (I am going to can quince applesauce that will make tears fall from the eyes of unbelievers) I am itching to eat pears and honeycrisp apples till I'm sick. The fall light is absolutely glorious. I can hardly get any work done. I just want to wander orchards and woods."

Artist Julia Kay of The Daily Portrait Project might well agree, as her enjoyment of the trees seems push her self-portrait far to the margin amid a Tangle of Trees.

Dana Driscoll is almost finished with her Tarot of Trees. The Major Arcana are complete, and she is powering through the Minor Arcana. Take your time to explore these cards – talk about a lot of windows into the world!

Salix Tree of Windywillow spots the portal of the fates in the Spider Webs Everywhere adorning the trees of her garden.

Liz Stablein shares her Trees of Mystery, lovely pines silhouetted against the sky.

Writer Jason Evans of The Clarity of Night offers a pairing of poetry and photography when he’s reminded to Whisper an Old Tune to the telephone poles.

Art helps us to see the world from a new perspective, and trees can afford the same. Writer Ash Krafton shares her tree-inspired piece Boots on a Branch to help us all remember to stay young, and try not to take life too seriously.

Tree-climbing isn’t just for the daring and agile. Julie Dunlap of Pines Above Snow gets to See the Forest From the Trees via the world of the tree canopy at Longwood Gardens thanks to the new tree house exhibit. Visit Forever Young to learn more about tree houses constructed for universal access to all.

emily* of em @ home tells us about Walking On and Listening To the Trees at Kew. The botanical gardens in West London also include a treetop walkway!

If that’s not enough tree-top fun for you, check out the 10 Astonishing Treehouses You’d Love to Live In at International Listings Luxury Real Estate. (Personally, I prefer the minimalist approach, but that doesn’t make these look tree-mansions look any less righteous.)

Wes and Steph Vander Lugt of Integral Mission show us One of the Largest Trees in the World, a glorious cypress located in Santa Maria del Tule outside Oaxaca, Mexico.

~~~ OF EARTH ~~~

Fred First of Fragments from Floyd shares the perspective of a photographer in a Tree Fallen in the Forest during a recent walk. Poignantly, Fred tells us,

“I discovered once more how difficult it is, with the single monopic lens of the camera to capture the sense of forest–of any setting where we carry a camera wanting to say “this is what it is like” and only in the end touch the edges of a place, of a time.”

Green Womyn gives us Deméter in all her harvest glory heralding the arrival of spring in the southern hemisphere, and autumn in the northern hemisphere.


Christine Swint of maría cristina poesía shares her poem Tree Bardo read aloud with images. Her reading helps us to slow down to tree-tempo and smell the dying roses. She also offers an Interview with a Hickory, for those who want to be in the know.

Dave Coulter of osage + orange tells us about Another Sort of Ground Zero as he walks down the literal memory lane of osageorange trees.


It’s not a party without a few raccoons around, so I invited Marvin’s recent Raccoon sighting from Nature in the Ozarks to remind us of who might be watching from the trees as we wander on our morning walks.

Meanwhile, back in the holler, Cady May shows us the Paw Paw Poo Poo in the local woods.

GrrlScientist of Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted) takes us on a tour while Visiting Darwin’s Home, gardens, and experiements.

Kathryn Stripling Byer of Here, Where I Am, drives us through the Trees of her world, and reflects.

You can always count on the Crafty Green Poet Juliet Wilson to ground you in the garden, just as she does for us this month with her poem Orchard, Gorgie Farm.

I haven’t had much time for poetry lately, so I took my own prescription for art and arboreality and wrote about my Love Affair with the Santa Barbara Moreton Bay Fig Tree to share with you for the Festival of the Trees here at Arboreality.

~~~ OF FIRE ~~~

Dave Bonta of Via Negativa offers us a glimpse of The Tree Eaters and other antique machinery, and then steps back to consider the bigger picture. For more lumber machinery fun, try a visit to Forks, Washington.

Marco Flavio Marinucci invokes the lightning with his art series Rootless, perhaps to help us focus on the small, unbound moments in life.

Meanwhile, A. Decker of Resonant Enigma pauses for Meditation No Method – Neti Neti. I think Decker’s on to something… let his immersion inspire you too.

Michelle Johnson of Poefusion shares her poem An Oak Tree. Thank you, Michelle, for teaching me the word “monadnock”!

Dan of Exploring the World’s Tree Species discovered fine selections of Tree Art (by trees) to inspire us.

Jarrett Walker, Creature of the Shade, is Confronting Vegetation: Araucaria muelleri. Talk about an Extreme Tree Encounter!

John Lincoln of Art-Insight shares his Crimsoned Memories among the trees. This is just one piece that is part of his enormous gallery located at Artbreak which is filled with glowing forest imagery.

Lye Tuck-Po of Anthropological Notebook gives us an Elegy for an Old Campsite in Malaysia, describing her view from both above and below the forest canopy while learning about the Batek people. She tells us,

“I envied my Batek friends’ confident ability to find their way in the forest, only to be reassured that they, too, have moments of lostness and disorientation. They have to keep their hearts focused on the route, they said, distractions are a-plenty in the forest.”

As Lye Tuck-Po learns about the Batek and their language she discovers that, “they too see and appreciate and find ineffable the possibilities of poetry in their world.”


While we are on the subject of elegies, The Star reports that Buddhist monks in Assam, India conducted a unique funeral ritual for a fallen banyan tree and the storks it took with it. Banyan trees are one of many sacred trees used to symbolize life and the connections between heaven and earth. According to this report,

"The villagers, most of them farmers, considered the banyan tree sacred and believed that the storks were their guardian angels."

~~~ OF WATER ~~~

Chris Crowley shares a spectacular Tree Dance in the Rain. She tells us,

“I've photographed [this tree] many times, and each time there is a new facet of its beauty which comes across.”

Artist Ester Wilson of Daily Drawings shares an Oregon Film Strip which provides a snapshot of the beautiful trees of this region.

Hans Vaupel gives us a glorious Reflection with Pond and Trees as an offering of autumn color.

Since I’m trading ocean for autumn this year, I was especially intrigued by Nina’s discovery of “beach trees” in the sand shared at her blog Nature Remains. Nina takes us on a tour Inside the Hoh Rain Forest, and lets her inner poet do the talking.

Colleen Redman of Loose Leaf Notes muses with her poem The Sunbather, and shares several encounters with the alien-like growth on the forest floor with Fungi Feng Shui and the Mushrooms Among Us, exercising her creative skills to provide each with a new name. (Don’t you just love the way autumn rain calls out the mushrooms?)

Speaking of alien-like growth, I'm glad I'm not the only one who was delightfully startled by the Kousa Dogwood tree. Lorianne DiSabato of Hoarded Ordinaries has a great picture and carefully describes this Enigma. (Incidentally, the first time I saw this tree was during my own trip to Longwood Gardens).

~~~ OF SPIRIT (FURTHER READING) ~~~

We conclude the Festival of the Trees 28 with a few new forks in the trail for you to continue your travels.



--- ART ---

The Apple Valley Review
Ed.: Leah Browning


If you love poetry and literature as much as I do, you’ll definitely enjoy the Fall 2008 issue of The Apple Valley Review edited by Leah Browning. The Apple Valley Review is an online literary magazine of fiction and poetry, and incidentally the Fall 2008 issue cover art features some beautiful trees in “Otter Creek,” oil on panel, 15" x 24"by Rob Evans.




--- ARBOREALITY ---


Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to Trees
By: Nalini Nadkarni

Arboreality readers may recall our interview with Bill Gladden of the Open Space Preservation Department of Chester County, Pennsylvania. Bill reminded me to include today’s “Further Reading” section in our Festival by pointing out how much he enjoyed Nalini Nadkarni’s “Recommended Readings” listed in her latest book, Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to Trees.

In his thoughts about the book Between Earth and Sky, Bill writes,

“In addition to trying to engender mindfulness, it also helps validate those of us in a related field, inspire us to persevere, and provides a nice, supportive, intellectually “safe” /fun/energizing place to go (i.e. a great book to curl up with on a rainy day and come away with a bit of a karmic recharge). Definitely someone to whom we can “look up.”

Nalini Nadkarni is a forest biologist who strives to help people find meaningful connections with the natural world. I invite you again to enjoy my interview with Nalini Nadkarni and learn about her latest book, Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to Trees.




ZRNO – Aroreality – Tree Stories
By: Mateja Smid Hribar

Finally, a contribution from Mateja Smid Hribar of ZRNO. Mateja has created an Arboreality page at her ZRNO blog as a new home for tree stories. Mateja tells us,

“[…] Because of their long life span trees can be seen
as unique beings which link human generations and preserve their stories for the future. […] Although some of these tree specimens are not extremely thick or tall they have a story to tell.

Contributions here will be in Slovenian and English languages, depands [sic] on stories, circumstances and authors.”

Her first story: The Bent Fir Tree.

* * *

Thank you again to every contributor who shared their tree-inspired artwork and adventures for this issue.

Special thanks to Founders Dave Bonta and Pablo Roundrocker for their ongoing support of The Festival of the Trees.

The Festival of the Trees 29 will be hosted on November 1, 2008 at Dave Bonta’s Via Negativa. Send submissions to bontasaurus [at] yahoo [dot] com or using the blog carnival submission form (link soon available). Submission deadline for issue 29 is October 29, 2008.


New hosts are always welcome for upcoming issues of The Festival of the Trees. To learn more and volunteer visit The Festival of the Trees coordinating blog.

* * *

All images used by permission in this post are © Copyright 2008 Linda Lovisa of Natural Transitions Art Studio (www.linda-lovisa-canada-art.com). Do not reproduce without permission.

Images of Linda Lovisa's artwork in order of appearance:

Freely Flowing Moutain Creek

Path Dabbled in the Light

Lone Poplar

Meandering Trail

Fairies Niche

Moonlight Peaks

Earth Bound

A Mystical Place

Two Seasons Met

The Nursery

Reflections of Spring

Wonders Above

This Issue 28 of The Festival of The Trees "Art and Arboreality" was prepared for your enjoyment by Jade Leone Blackwater.