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.

Feature Interview: Nalini Nadkarni

Today it is my pleasure to introduce Dr. Nalini Nadkarni, author of Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to Trees. Nalini is a professor at the Evergreen State College and an accomplished forest ecologist with over 25 years of experience conducting research in tropical and temperate rainforests. Her specialty is the upper reaches of the forest: the canopy. You can learn more about her work at the International Canopy Network (ICAN).

JLB - Nalini, welcome to Arboreality! Thank you for taking some time out of your busy schedule to chat with us.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to start with a little background. Please tell us, when / how did the idea for Between Earth and Sky first sprout? What motivated you to wrap your arms around such an enormous subject as the connections between trees and people?

NMN - In some ways, I have been thinking about this book since I was a young girl climbing trees in her back yard. In fact, I wrote a “self-published book” when I was 12 years old on tree-climbing, called “Be Among the Birds”. I produced only one copy! I grew up with a deep love of trees and nature, and chose to pursue the academic of forest ecology to deepen my understanding trees. Along the way, however, I recognized the power of poetry, literature, and art to convey important ideas, and so I incorporated them into my book. The actual launch, however, took place when I was teaching an interdisciplinary class at The Evergreen State College, called “Trees and Humans”, in which my students and I explored the many relationships between humans and people in a systematic way. I realized that although it is an enormous subject, as you say, if I could organize it and synthesize it, it might be a good contribution to the existing literature on trees and their conservation.

JLB - What were your original goals when you set out to create Between Earth and Sky? Now that the book is complete, have your goals for the book changed?

NMN - My original goals were to create a book that crosses disciplinary boundaries to document the many ways humans and trees interact. Initially, I conceived it as a book rich in content, with facts and figures that would “convince” readers that trees are important and worthy of being conserved. However, as the work progressed, I realized that I needed to give myself permission to move from a strictly “facts” base orientation and instead tell stories about trees, about people and trees, and most of all, about my own life in order to be more effective in my goal of moving people toward mindfulness.

JLB - Of all the research and outreach that contributed to this book, could you tell us what were the biggest, or most unexpected bits of learning that you personally took away from the project?

NMN - The most important thing I learned was about my own motivation to understand and protect trees. As I wrote the book, collected stories, and examined my own connections to trees, I realized that it was my childhood interactions that have most contributed to my sense of wanting to protect them. As I describe in the very first chapter, when I was a young girl, I found that trees were places where I felt safe and protected from the bewildering world of grownups. They were my refuge. Over the course of my forest ecology career, working in trees on four continents, I am fully aware of how much trees need protection and refuge from humans. That, I now realize, is the motivation for my drive to protect trees – not only their huge importance in maintaining stable climate, a supply of oxygen, and biodiversity.

I know you’re a smart cookie with extensive scientific knowledge (and a vocabulary to match). How have you crafted your book to be more interesting and accessible than an “academic tome”?

The process of making my writing more accessible was a difficult one! I have been writing scientific articles and books and speaking to academic audiences for over two decades, so that is the “default mode” I fall into when I write. I had to be very conscious about writing on a more personal and conversational level without falling into the trap of being either too sappy or too sloppy. One critical piece of the process of writing the book was to have many eyes pass over it in the form of a generous set of readers who could point out the parts that fell into the pedantic or the maudlin before I sent material to the editor.

JLB - What were your favorite parts of this project? Are there any sections of this book which are most dear to your heart?

NMN - Although the writing of the book had its times of frustration, loneliness, tedium, and low confidence, there were many high points. I loved the creative moments when an idea from a scientific work about some aspect of trees would be echoed in a contemporary poem, or when I made an original connection or metaphor that really worked. I very much enjoyed the doing of the work with my collaborators and editors (particularly Jade!), who helped in finding and sending pieces of information my way. I enjoyed getting a previously intractable sentence “just right”. I loved hearing the tree stories people would offer me when they learned about the topic of the book. The section of the book I enjoyed writing most was about trees and symbolism, as I learned so much about how central tree symbolism is in so many cultures, which indicates the importance of trees themselves.

What were your biggest challenges in creating this book? Are there any sections that you want to develop for a second edition (or volume)?

My biggest challenges was in organizing it all. There is a HUGE volume of information, facts and figures, images, and stories about trees. Perhaps more than any other part of nature (maybe rivers and mountains are on a par), trees have evoked thinking and writing and art. I struggled with filtering out what seemed the most interesting and compelling, but still feel insecure that I have left critical pieces out. I would like to work more with trees as inspiration for art – music, visual art, poetry, literature. That would be a logical follow up, not only to enumerate the pieces of art that have been inspired by trees, but also what those products tell us about the nature of the relationship between trees and people.

Now that Between Earth and Sky has its first chance to speak to an audience, what are your hopes? What do you most want readers to take away from this book?

My hope is that after readers finish this book, they will say, wow, I had no idea that trees are so cool, so important, so beautiful, so fascinating. I want them to recall trees that have been important to them in their youth and in their adulthood from all parts of their life. I want them to walk down an urban street and say, hey, look at the body language of that tree, what was its past? I want them to climb a tree when they are feeling scared or sad, and then feel braver and not so sad. I want them to become mindful of all of the things that trees provide, and to become mindful of all of the things we must provide trees.

As the concept of sustainability slowly enters the public consciousness and conversation, how do you see Between Earth and Sky as contributing to the discussion?

I believe that my book is a direct and powerful participant in the concept of sustainability, as it is growing into our society. The book is essentially a document about conservation about one of the best ambassadors to nature – trees. The ultimate objective is to instill a sense of mindfulness about the importance of trees and forests – the lungs of our Earth. What logically follows once mindfulness is aroused is a sense of stewardship and conservation, which are both bulwarks of sustainability.

You perform a tremendous amount of outreach work which connects you with the public and the community, both local and global. What are the most important benefits that you have expected and experienced from these efforts? How have those experiences shaped your latest book?

What I have learned from my outreach activities to diverse public audiences such as prisoners, poets, legislators, urban youth, Inuits, and modern dancers, is that I learn as much about trees and forests from them as I teach. They see the world – and trees – in different ways, with fresh perspectives, and that in turns wakes up my own eyes and brain from its entrenched past approaches. I believe that this is a theme that emerged in my book. I constantly described the different ways of seeing trees that I garnered from other audiences, with fresh metaphors and analogies. I have a proclivity to do that in everyday life, but by consciously opening the door and inviting in these new guests, I was able to see the forest and the trees in new ways, and to present those to my readers.

What’s the next step for you? I know you’re a veritable whirlwind of ideas and activity. Has Between Earth and Sky inspired any “branch-off” projects?

My next steps are to sit and listen for a while, instead of speak. I want to hear reactions and questions that emerge from readers from this book. I will also be forging ahead on science projects in the temperate rainforest canopy, to keep my scientific brain engaged, as well as moving forward on the collaborative research and sustainability projects with prisoners that has now gained substantial funding from the Department of Corrections. I am currently raising funds to go on a national tour with a modern dance company to perform “biome” a dance about the rainforest inspired by joint time in my study sites. All of these will continue to provide a rich milieu to better understand the relationship between trees and people. My ultimate hope is to establish a project called “1000 Voices of Nature”, in which I gather multiple voices of scientists, artists, children, and others from all over the world to document the importance of trees and nature to humans, and in so doing, to make a strong case for its protection.

Where can readers find you for book signings and events?

I will be signing books in major independent bookstores in the Pacific Northwest in August and September 2009: Portland (Powell’s); Bellingham (Village Books); Seattle (Seattle Town Hall, Elliott Bay), and Olympia (Orca Books).

Nalini, thank you again for the opportunity to discuss Between Earth and Sky at Arboreality, and to learn a little more about your goals and projects. You’re the type of scientist AND artist to whom we can all “look up”!

Thanks!

* * * * * *

To learn more about Dr. Nalini Nadkarni's work, be sure to explore the following:

Dr. Nalini Nadkarni - Homepage

Research Ambassadors

Join us to discuss Between Earth and Sky on Facebook!

To meet Nalini at an upcoming book signing event, visit one of these fine bookstores:

Powell's Books

August 21, 2008

7:30pm

1005 W. Burnside, Portland, OR 97209

Powell's Events - Between Earth and Sky, Nalini Nadkarni

Village Books

September 3, 2008

7:00pm

1210 11th Street, Bellingham, WA 98225

Village Books Events - Between Earth and Sky, Nalini Nadkarni

University Bookstore

September 30, 2008

7:30pm

Town Hall Seattle, Downstairs, 1119 8th Avenue, Seattle, 98105

University Bookstore Events - Between Earth and Sky, Nalini Nadkarni

(Sponsored by Town Hall Seattle and University Book Store. Admission is $5 at the door.)

Orca Books

October 2, 2008

7:00pm

509 4th Ave E, Olympia, WA 98501

Orca Books Events - Between Earth and Sky, Nalini Nadkarni

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All photographs used in this article are © Copyright 2008 Nalini M. Nadkarni. Do not use without permission.

Between Earth and Sky cover image is © Copyright 2008 University of California Press. Do not use without permission.

Goose Snag

Today’s image is from a recent hike at Ridley Creek State Park. This “goose snag” caught our eye from way up the trail, and was too cool not to share. Perhaps we should name her “Snaggle Goose.”

There is more to share from the park: coming up next I’ll share pictures of winter hardwoods, fungi, and lovely evergreen holly.