Our Monday Morning Video to kick off the week: "Feathers to Fire," from Gregory Colbert's gorgeous Ashes to Snow "nomadic museum" exhibition.
My apologies for my general absence from this blog of late -- which is likely to go on for another week or two for I'm in the chaotic middle of a house move. Yet it's also a pleasure to leave the blog in Midori's capable hands, for I too am delighted and amazed by the treasures she comes up with...
Steven Kenny was born in 1962 in Peerskill, New York, and studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, with a European Honors Program year abroad in Rome. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the U.S. and Europe. Recent shows include Dreamland: American Explorations into Surrealism in Santa Barbara, California, and Venus and the Female Intuition in Denmark, the Netherlands, and France.
Kenny's passion for myth, folklore, and the numinous world of nature is eloquently expressed in his remarkable paintings, which are also works of activism aimed at awakening us to our responsibilities to the planet we co-inhabit. "We humans are inclined to forget or ignore the principles of existence," the artist says. "They include: every action directly impacts our environment, change is unavoidable, stasis is unnatural, time is beyond our influence, conception is the commencement of death as well as life, and many others. Our challenge is to humbly accept Nature's gifts and live by the lessons set before us without imposing our arrogant will upon each other and the planet.
"As humans more fully embrace technology we feel an increasing sense of anxiety, disorientation and fear. To compensate, our desire for predictability and order ignites a voracious hunger for control that induces us to force Nature to relinquish her secrets. Once a trusted provider, she is now viewed as 'shifty,' inadequate, and needing improvement. We manipulate our surroundings in an attempt to manage time, eliminate unforeseen change, and establish a permanent sense of stability. We go to great lengths to surround ourselves with psychological, physical, spiritual, social, and cultural environments that we hope will last. The result is an increasingly artificial existence.
"By combining detailed realism, surrealism, and symbolism I convey the universal language of Nature as I understand it. I visually combine the human figure, plants, animals, and other forms of matter in a natural tableaux vivants. These scenarios present our existence as either environmentally harmonious or complicated by human contrivances. My paintings serve as a reminder to myself, and perhaps to others, that all life on earth is a single organism. The world I depict is one where interdependencies prosper and hierarchies crumble."
I highly encourage you to visit Steven Kenny's website, a treasure trove of beautiful imagery, where you can purchase original paintings, prints, and copies of his magical art book, Soul Flight. You can also see his work on the Ten Dreams gallery, Klaudia Marr gallery, and beinArt SurrealArt Collective websites. (Many thanks to Endicott's Assistant Editor Jamie Bluth for introducing us to this painter's work.)
Following on from Midori's post yesterday, this month's issue of Orion Magazine contains a lovely article by Lisa M. Hamilton on shizen nouhou, natural agriculture, as practiced by the Shumei group in Japan. Hamilton profiles a farmer named Susumu Hashimoto, who explains how his daily work is a means of spiritual devotion. Hamilton asks him what he hopes to accomplish through shizen nouhou's labor-intensive, low-yield method of growing food:
“'World peace,' he replied, then smiled and waited for the next question, as if there were nothing more to say."
Read the full article, "Land, Farmer, Community: A Sacred Trust," on Orion Magazine's website. And while you're there, don't miss the gorgeous poem "Boundaries" by the great Mary Oliver in the same issue. The archive of past issues holds such gems as "Small Wonder" by Barbara Kingsolver (an essay reflecting on miracles, myth, and the nature of war), "The Naturalist" by Barry Lopez (discussing the importance of sitting quietly by a river), "Tumult of Vision" by David Abram (introducing the beautiful photographs of Mathew Chase-Daniel), and a lovely little essay on the humble tortilla by Rebecca Allen.
The painting above is "Seed Saver" by Steven Kenny.
Author Barth Anderson (who also works as a manager at Minneapolis' premier organic grocery co-op, The Wedge) alerted me to the growing movement by individuals, co-ops, and even chain organic grocery stores to offer relief and support for the Midwest organic farmers who saw their crops literally washed away in the flooding that occurred throughout much of the Midwest states this last August.
Sow the Seeds Fund has created a useful website for information for farmers seeking relief assistance and for individuals and corporations wishing to donate, as well as a list of co-ops. The site also offers a list of grocery stores in the Midwest (and across the US) that are participating in the assistance programs. Gretta Wing Miller has produced a short film on the flooding, which you can see here. And here's a short video of Barth Anderson on Showcase Minnesota discussing the flood and its impact.
Author O. R. Melling sent me this information on the recent protests to stop the development of a motorway through the Tara Valley, one of the oldest sacred sites in Ireland (and the setting for her novels in the Fairie Chronicles series).
"Here are some pics of the two truly mythic protests that took place this weekend in Ireland against the M3 motorway which is ploughing through the sacred valley of Tara. Raths and other ancient sites have already been destroyed with National Road Authority archaeologists insisting they have 'recorded everything.' Tara is now on the World Monument Fund's list of 100 most endangered sites.
"The EU is investigating the matter under destruction of world heritage but the Irish government is trying to rush through the motorway before it can be outlawed. If the motorway goes through, the noise of traffic density will overwhelm what is now a still, green, and sacred beautiful place; plus the inevitable development that will accompany the motorway will destroy the landscape entirely.
"First protest: harpers from all over gathered before the Dáil (government buildings) on Saturday, September 22, to play The Harp That Once Thro' Tara's Hall (by Thomas Moore) to voice their protest. The Green Man was there and also Irish actor and Hollywood star, Stuart Townsend, who has been championing the cause for three years.
"Second protest: a giant human harp and message on the Hill of Tara under the guidance of aerial artist and environmentalist visionary John Quigley. Crowd estimates from 2,000-3,000 people, more than expected, so John began to decorate - calling for people with red jackets to make those rubies!" (Aerial photo credit: Paula Geraghty.)
There were additional support protests in Boston, Chicago, and New York. For more information about the campaign (and an opportunity to get involved) visit the Save Tara website.
(Photos: top to bottom: Stuart Townsend at Harpers' protest, Human harp formed from protesters, Harpers' protest, people gathering to form the great harp, O.R. Melling doing her part as a bit of the great human harp.)
I have to admit I am romantic about the treehouse. Just the idea of being comfortably suspended between branches is thrilling (and probably harks back to my childhood when I spent a great deal of time hiding out and reading in the canopy of an old tree). So I was delighted to see the new creation of Dustin Feider (fellow Wisconsinite and furniture maker), a beautiful and eco-friendly treehouse glowing like a Japanese lantern at the top of an incredibly tall ash tree. (Dustin uses a basket and an electric winch to hoist himself up.)
Modeled after Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome, the treehouse is made of an aluminum frame of connected triangles, covered with translucent panels of recycled polypropylene. Half of the panels open up to allow breezes to pass through. At sunset, Feider says, the “branches and leaves cast purple shadows that move across the panels, and the sun illuminates the interior in yellow. It’s quite psychedelic.”
Here's additional information on Feider's company, O2 Sustainability Treehouse, that provides more gorgeous photos and technical drawings. For you techies, here's an article from Popular Mechanics that explains some of the treehouse's remarkable design features. And stop by Feider's website to see the gallery of treehouses and order plans for your own treehouse. Click on the large image at the bottom of the webpage to see a flash presentation. 
Performance and installation artist Carolyn Ryder Cooley creates "emotionally driven narrative spaces" and modern mythic stories in three-dimensional form for viewers to enter into, experience, and explore. Her work is informed by fantasy and folklore, nature, history, politics, the mystery of abandoned places and found objects, and the secret lives of insects, birds, and animals (especially deer). She is an interstitial artist who weaves visual art, performance art and music together as she endeavors "to engage viewers on multi-sensory levels that alter their experience of time and place."
Her intent, she says, is to "invent haunted dream worlds that echo political and cultural phenomena of past and present. Video, sound and site-specific lighting create an atmosphere of dis-reality. Rescued materials are transformed into props and garments which reveal incomplete evidence of pasts. Emerging from post-industrial waste, pollution and decay, these installation places give refuge to new habitations of marginal hybrid species. Mythical androgen creatures stem from cracks and crevices as drawings and performance characters. Their bodies are often scarred, bandaged and modified through plastic surgeries and transfigurations that abandon notions of gender and identity. By performing improvisationally and collaboratively within these installations, I myself become a Utopian gutter creature."
The photograph at the top of this page is from Ryder Cooley's "Serenades for a Dead Deer," performed in Troy, New York in 2006. The next image is "Serenade for Factory Factories and Mills," North Adams, Massachusetts, 2006. To the right is "Apparitions, Serenade for Tabor," in which a mysterious veiled figure in a feathered gown performs at various sites in the town of Tabor, Czech Republic, 2004. Just below is "The Riverbird Serenade" (North Adams, Massachusetts, 2005), which the artist describes as follows:
"A chair is suspended from a bridge. Musical serenades are performed in the chair 10 ft. above a river with cars driving overhead and birds flying around. Performance and chair are viewed through the gallery windows. Concurrently, an indoor installation consists of four chairs suspended in individual window wells. One empty window invites a view of the chair outside. Beneath each chair is a nest of rocks collected from the river. During non-performance hours, serenades can be watched on video and the performance gown hangs alongside the video monitor."
The last two images come from Ryder Cooley's performance piece "To End All War," created in 2005 to protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The artist explains:
"The central character, Vigil Deer, is an antlered doe. She is clothed in red, the color of martyrdom and blood as a reminder of the suffering caused by war. The iconography of this project stemmed from a series of deer encounters during the rutting and hunting season, and the subsequent discovery of a hermaphroditic deer species, known as the Velvet Horns, who live peacefully in alternative communities."
Ryder Cooley received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in sculpture in 1993, spent several years as an active member of the San Francisco arts community, and then earned an MA in Combined Media at SUNY, Albany. Her work (which also includes drawings, paintings, and murals) has been exhibited widely, from California and New York to the Czech Republic, Morocco, and Indonesia. She has participated in community arts workshops in El Salvador, is a recipient of a Belle Foundation Grant, and her work was included in the 2006 Hot and Cold catalogue acquisition at MOMA in New York. To learn more about Ryder Cooley's multi-faceted art, please visit her website, which is fascinating, inspiring, and magical. (With thanks to Ulla and Midori for the link.)
Steve Tobin is an artist who has gained increasing prominence in recent years for his iconic sculptures inspired by shapes found in nature and science. His passion for organic forms is shared by two of my other favorite sculptors, the U.K. artists Andy Goldsworthy and Peter Randall-Page -- but Tobin comes from the U.S. side of the Atlantic. He grew up in the suburbs of Philadephia, and now works out of a busy sculpting studio in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
As Amei Wallach explains in a fascinating article posted on the Smithsonian's website, "Tobin calls what he does — turning aspects of nature into sculpture — 'visual science.' Art and science are often 'regarded as mutually exclusive,' he says, 'because science is considered to be about deductive reasoning. But science defines the universe starting from basic assumptions. Art is trying to do the same thing using a different language.'
"With a degree in theoretical mathematics from Tulane University, Tobin is particularly interested in string theory, which proposes that everything in the universe is composed of vibrating loops of energy. In that spirit, he created a spiny organic work he calls Uni, Japanese for sea urchin, out of junked fireworks-launching tubes. The piece appears to be in throbbing motion, like string theory's loops of energy. More recently he's been working on 'Exploded Clay' sculptures (made by detonating fireworks in blocks of wet clay), which, at least in theory, pay homage to the Big Bang that most scientists believe created the universe."
Working in materials that range from glass and clay to bones and bronze, Tobin creates art, he says, that "comes from my own heartbeat. If my life gets too frenetic, I can't feel my pulse and don't know what I'm doing."
The extraordinary piece at the top of this post is "Trinity Root," a twenty foot high bronze sculpture for Trinity Church in lower Manhattan. It was created from the roots of the historic Sycamore tree that saved St. Paul's Chapel during the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001. The sculpture to the left, "Walking Roots," was exhibited at the Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles. Regarding these sculptures, Tobin says: "When you walk away from the roots and go on with your life, hopefully the next time you look at a tree, your mind will travel underground and see things not readily apparent. We all have roots. We all have histories. We all have mysteries below the surface."
You can see more of Steve Tobin's art, and watch a film about his work process, on his website. Read Amei Wallach's article on Tobin (with photographs by Bill Ballenberg) here.
Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord is a book artist whose work has been exhibited and collected across the United States. Born in Rahway, New Jersey in 1951, she now lives and works in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Her exquisite Spirit Book Series has a distinctly mythic quality, evoking the spirit of stories told for centuries in both oral and printed forms.
"The Spirit Books bring together my love of the book and my response to the natural world that we see and the invisible one that lies behind it," the artist writes. "...I feel a deep connection to older powers as I gather twigs, branches, vines, and roots. Using them to cradle books, I link them to the longstanding tradition of books as testaments of faith and belief."
The book pictured in the paragraph above, for example is called Sacred Speaker. The name "refers to the fan shape, and the original use of folding fans in Japan -- for communication with the gods."
The book below is Hope Offering. "The hawthorn is a symbol of hope. In Ireland and Wales, women hang bits of cloth on branches near sacred wells, a custom that was originally an offering to the goddess. Here the hawthorn is embellished with beads and seed pods from the rue plant. Rue is the symbol of all good things at weddings in Lithuania."
In addition to creating these one-of-a-kind books, Gaylord established Notan Press in 1990. The name of the press is taken from the Japanese design principle based on the interaction of dark (no) and light (tan). "I first encountered the concept in a design class with Brenda Lowen- Siegel," she explains. "I was intrigued. I came to see the world in terms of notan when I took a weekend workshop with artist/calligrapher Jenny Groat. For Jenny, notan extended beyond the page and into life. From her experience with Zen Buddhism and Jungian analysis, she saw notan as more than a design principle; it spoke to her of the importance of acknowledging and balancing light and dark, positive and negative, in all aspects of life. The workshop with Jenny occurred in the year that had brought the death of my mother and the birth of my first child. Her ideas touched me deeply and I, too, came to embrace this view."
To see more of this amazing artist's work, visit the Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord website.
Still thinking of Alaska and the mythic heritage passed down by its indigenous peoples, I was reminded of the work of two of my favorite writers, Barry Lopez and Richard Nelson.
Writer and cultural anthropologist Richard Nelson was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and moved to Alaska in the mid-1960s, -- where, he says, "I have worked as an ethnographer, living intermittently in remote northern communities and recording native traditions centered around the natural world. I spent about two years in Koyukon Indian villages and just over a year with Inupiaq Eskimos on the Arctic coast — traveling by dog team and snowmobile, recording traditional knowledge, and learning the hunter’s way." Nelson has published several fascinating books based on these experiences including Hunters of the Northern Forest, Shadow of the Hunter (stories), and Make Prayers to the Raven. He is also the author of an important, controversial book about deer in North America, Heart and Blood, and of The Island Within, which won the John Burroughs Award for Nature Writing.
In his essay "Understanding Eskimo Science," Nelson discusses the insights into the natural world held by the native people of the Arctic. "Probably no society has been so deeply alienated as ours from the community of nature," writes Nelson, "or has viewed the natural world from a greater distance of mind, has lapsed into a murkier comprehension of its connections with the sustaining environment. Because of this, we have great difficulty understanding our rootedness to earth, our affinities with nonhuman life. I believe it’s essential that we learn from traditional societies, especially those whose livelihood depends on the harvest of a wild environment — hunters, fishers, trappers, and gatherers. These people have accumulated bodies of knowledge much like our own sciences. And they can give us vital insights about responsible membership in the community of life, insights founded on a wisdom we’d long forgotten and now are beginning to rediscover....A Koyukon elder, who took it upon himself to be my teacher, was fond of telling me: 'Each animal knows way more than you do.' He spoke as if it summarized all that he understood and believed." (Read the full article here.)
Barry Lopez spent four years in the Arctic, traveling to remote areas that are home to carribou and polar bears, criss-crossing the vast region between the Davis Strait and Bering Strait to talk to biologists, geologists, archaeologists, rangers, Native elders and everyday folk inhabiting the far North. In Arctic Dreams (winner of the National Book Award) Lopez brings the landscape vividly to life with the beauty and precision of his language, arguing for the vital importance of preserving Arctic wilderness. He examines the history of the region, the legacy of 19th century explorers, and the effects of commerce and politics on the Arctic's harsh, beautiful eco-system -- all the while casting a spell that makes you feel like you're right there alongside him.
Lopez grew up in New York and California, and has lived in Oregon since 1968. He is the author of a number of highly influential books about "the relationship between physical landscape and human culture" (Of Wolves and Men, Desert Notes/River Notes, etc.), as well as wonderful works of fiction for children and adults, essays, articles, folklore collections, and an autobiograpy.
His most recent book is Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, created with Debra Gwartney. This is a unique, engrossing volume of history, folklore, and contemporary writing defining the language of "place," of words that rise from the contours of the American continent, with contributions from 45 writers including Linda Hogan, Barbara Kingsolver, Bill McKibben, Ellen Meloy, Luis Alberto Urrea, Joy Williams, and Terry Tempest Williams. For more on the book, visit the Home Ground website. I also recommend Lopez's recent interview with Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan among the Onodaga Nation of western New York, published in Orion Magazine. You can read it online here.
For mythic fiction about the far North, I recommend Lesley Thomas' Flight of the Goose. Set in a small village on the Bering Strait coast in the 1970s, Thomas explores themes of myth, cultural conflict, environmentalism, and spirituality against the spectacular backdrop of the Arctic tundra.
The painting above is "Arctic Dreams" by Robin Eschner. To see more of her work, including her collaborations with Barry Lopez, visit her website.
"We cannot, of course, save the world, because we do not have authority over its parts. We can serve the world though. That is everyone’s calling, to lead a life that helps." -- Barry Lopez
There is only one way to endure the deep, cold heart of winter, and that is the arrival of those glorious seed catalogs that produce an instant orgy of color and fragrant optimism. Mine have begun showing up: Burpee's, with its glossy photos, and Jung's Seed Catalog, which still carries the hand-tinted 1930s images of its classic seeds, are my two favorites for all the standard seeds with magical names like Wonder Pole Beans and Mimulus Magic Blotches (pictured on the left).
I love the paintings in vintage seed catalogs, which pictured fantastical fairytale gardens and faux medieval settings for dreaming Midwestern housewives. The farmwife might plant vegetables, but she found a little romance too in the lovely posies, primroses, and spilling roses like those on the cover of Joseph Breck and Sons Seeds to the right. 20th Century seed catalogs would later replace these dreamscapes with paintings of robust and prodigious vegetables that Jack might well have stolen from the garden of some giant -- all to inspire confidence in the farmer, rather than romance!
I often daydream about turning my yard over to nature entirely -- and then I scour the online catalogs devoted to rare native plants and seeds. Try Native American Seed for beautiful wildflowers such as Foxgloves, Gay feather, and Goldenrod; or Native Seeds Search, which carries unusual Native American seeds. Seeds of Change offers organic seeds with exotic names such as the drought-resistant Blue Speckled Tepary Beans and the exquisite Bloodflower. In another month, the proliferation of seed catalogs in my house will multiply like the forgotten zucchini plant that exploded with squashlets everywhere.
In the meantime, there will be seedbeds and peat pots germinating on every chilly window sill -- happily awaiting that first genuine warm day when tender seedlings will sit on the back porch and breathe the spring into life.
No discussion of trees and tree art is complete without mentioning Wood, a book devoted to the woodland art of English sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. Born in Cheshire in 1956, Goldsworthy was raised in Yorkshire, has settled in Scotland, and makes his site-specific environmental sculptures all over the world, from Japan and the Australian outback to North America and the North Pole. Inspired by the American "Land Art" movement of the 1960s, Goldsworthy creates works of art from wood, stone, leaves, reeds, thorns, water, snow, ice, and other natural materials. Many of these are ephemeral pieces, documented photographically, while others bring the beauty of nature's patterns and shapes into gallery and museum settings.
Arthur Lubow writes in The Smithsonian Magazine: "On a typical day, Andy Goldsworthy can be found in the woods near his home in Penpont, Scotland, maybe cloaking a fallen tree branch with a tapestry of yellow and brown elm leaves, or, in a rainstorm, lying on a rock until the dry outline of his body materializes as a pale shadow on the moist surface. Come winter, he might be soldering icicles into glittering loops or star bursts with his bare fingers. Because he works outdoors with natural materials, Goldsworthy is sometimes portrayed as a modern Druid; really, he is much closer to a latter-day Impressionist. Like those 19th-century painters, he is obsessed with the way sunlight falls and flickers, especially on stone, water, and leaves." (Read the rest of the article here.)
Other books on Goldsworthy's magical art: Stone, Time, Arch, Wall, Passage, Hand to Earth, Midsummer Snowballs, and Andy Goldsworthy: A Collaboration With Nature. An inspiring film about the artist, Rivers and Tides, is available on DVD. There's a website for Goldsworthy's "Sheepfolds" project in Cumbria; a site for his "Snowballs in Summer" in London; and an interview with Goldsworthy about his "Oak Cairn" sculpture for Scripps Institute. You can view more of his work on the eyestorm site, and read the artist's diary concerning the creation of a piece in Digne, France.
"Nature for me isn't the bit that stops in the national parks," says Goldsworthy. "It's in a city, in a gallery, in a building. It's everywhere we are."
After reading Terri's post on the project to plant a billion trees, I remembered these beautiful spherical treehouses designed and built by Tom Chudleigh of British Columbia, Canada. These nesty-like tree houses hang suspended high up between the trees. Chudleigh has even managed to fit them with plumbing, electricity, and windows.
These tree houses are for sale...but if you don't quite have the cash (or are waiting for your grove of newly planted trees to get taller) you can rent Eryn (the first tree house made of cedar wood) on their heavily wooded property. Check here to see a cool video, Living Like The Ewoks, from Discovery World's Daily Planet about Chudleigh and his unique treehouses.
The U.N.'s Plant a Billion Trees Campaign was launched yesterday in Nairobi, Kenya, and they're asking everyone (from individuals to organizations) to take part. The campaign seeks to facilitate the planting of a minimum of one billion trees around the world during 2007, pointing out that re-foresting the Earth is necessary to restore the productivity of soil and water resources, and that expanding tree cover will mitigate the build-up of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a global warming greenhouse gas.
Program director Achim Steiner says: "The Billion Tree Campaign is but an acorn, but it can also be practically and symbolically a significant expression of our common determination to make a difference in developing and developed countries alike. We have but a short time to avert serious climate change.We need action. We need to plant trees alongside other concrete community-minded actions and in doing so send a signal to the corridors of political power across the globe that the watching and waiting is over – that countering climate change can take root via one billion small but significant acts in our gardens, parks, countryside and rural areas."
You can find more information on the Billion Trees Campaign website.
The tree picture at the top of this post is by mythic artist Mark Wagner. Visit his Hearts and Bones Studio website to see more of his work. The second image is my painting "Tree Woman and Child," which is available for purchase as a print on the Friends of Endicott page -- with all proceeds donated to Endicott to keep the Journal of Mythic Arts online.
As a child I had a favorite tree, notched in just such a perfect way that I could perch high in the branches and, with legs dangling, spend the day reading. Yet it never occured to me that I could have "grown" a whole room full of leafing seats, all tucked inside a perfect arbor. Yet arborsculpture, especially chairs, was the peculiar habit of John Krubsack, a prominent banker in the very small town of Embarrass, Wisconsin. (Is that a name for a town or what?) His box elder chair was shown at the 1915 World's Fair. Arthur Wiechula, an agricultural engineer, published Developing Houses from Living Trees in 1926.
But certainly the most audacious and ambitious was Axel Erlandson, a Swedish immigrant, who in 1945 developed the "Tree Circus," a roadside attraction in Scott's Valley, California. He shaped about seventy five trees into remarkable forms and and unique scuptures. Check out the wonderful blog Pruned, which has a nice post with pictures about the famous site.
The movement to create living sculptures and trees continues today. Check out the wonderful gallery of international photos on arborsculptor Richard Reames' website, where you can find all sorts of interviews, links, and an article on Erlandson's Tree Circus and the history of arborsculpture. You can also purchase tools, and copies of Reames' how-to book, Arborsculpture: Solutions for a Small Planet, as well as How to Grow a Chair. The site also offers advice, such as how to pick the right sort of tree for your sculpture.
It will be enough to keep me dreaming this winter of starting my own little chair in the backyard...and maybe, if I am lucky, in a few years I can settle among the leaves (without the dangerous scramble up to the treetop) in a chair like the one below, created by Lebender Stuhl in Germany.
Back in August, we posted information on Gregory Colbert's "Ashes and Snow" art exhibition, featuring dream-like images exploring contact between humans and animals in far-flung locales around the world. Last night I had the opportunity to see Colbert's "Ashes and Snow" DVD in which his remarkable photographic images are brought to life, accompanied by an enigmatic narration and an equally dream-like soundtrack. If the exhibition isn't headed your way any time soon, then I highly recommend the "Ashes and Snow" DVD despite it's rather hefty price. If you're not familiar with Colbert's work, visit the "Ashes and Snow" website, which will give you a taste.
I left Colbert's film with the wistful desire to sleep in the arms of elephants...which in turn reminded me of Barbara Gowdy's extraordinary novel The White Bone. One reviewer dubbed it "the Watership Down of elephants," but it's a deeper, sadder book than that, beautifully written and full of fascinating elephant observations and lore. I consider it one of the great works of contemporary mythic fiction, and wish it were better known. As Joy Williams (another fine writer) has said, "This sorrowful novel does holy work because it engages us in that holiest of acts -- empathy."
Park(ing) is the brilliant environmental-arts project of the innovative San Francisco art collective Rebar. Just last Thursday (September 21), Rebar converted drab, downtown urban parking spaces into temporary parks. After plugging the meter for two hours, the collective had a truck unload sod, potted trees, and benches, and voila! An instant park was installed where people sat and enjoyed the unexpected pleasure of green space. Here's a quote from the artists' statement:
We identified a site in an area of downtown San Francisco that is underserved by public outdoor space and is in an ideal, sunny location between the hours of noon and 2 p.m. There we installed a small, temporary public park that provided nature, seating, and shade. Our goal was to transform a parking spot into a PARK(ing) space, thereby temporarily expanding the public realm and improving the quality of urban human habitat, at least until the meter ran out.
Check out the website to see a short video of this wonderful event from last year's first Park(ing) and photos from other cities who also Park(ed).
Gregory Colbert is a photographer, filmmaker, writer, installation artist, educator, and myth-maker who is traveling the world with an on-going multimedia exhibition, "Ashes and Snow" (housed in the Nomadic Museum created by architect Shigeru Ban). Consisting of luminous, dreamlike photographs, an epistolary novel, a bestiary, 35 mm films, and much more, "Ashes and Snow" creates a world as magical as any found in the pages of a fantasy book, yet rooted in all that's most simple, sacred, and natural in our own. About his work, the artist says: "In exploring the shared language and poetic sensibilities of all animals, I am working towards rediscovering the common ground that once existed when people lived in harmony with animals. The [photographic] images depict a world that is without beginning or end, here or there, past or present." Colbert's nomadic exhibition began in Venice, Italy in 2002, then traveled to New York and Los Angeles in 2005 and 2006. The artist's intent is to keep the project moving, changing, and metamorphosing as it slowly wends its way through Asia, Africa, and around the world. The "Ashes and Snow" website provides a fascinating overview of the project, and a beautiful introduction to this extraordinary artist's work.
If you haven't visited Stu Jenks' website recently, he's added some lovely photographs taken during a trip to the isles of Scotland last year, such as this one from the Isle of Lewis.
Robin Eschner is an artist whose work is inspired by the wonders of the natural world, by animals and birds, and by the words of naturalist writers such as Barry Lopez. She's collaborated on many projects with Lopez over the years, including two books: Apologia and Letters from Heaven. (The painting to the right, titled The Brushing of Wings, was inspired by Lopez's book River Notes.) To view Eschner's lovely work (and purchase prints and notecards), please visit her website.
The website created by Tucson artist Paul Mirocha is filled with treasures. Paul was born in Minnesota but has been a desert rat for many years now, and much of his work is deeply rooted in his love of the natural world: plants, animals, insects, and landscapes ranging from the Sonoran desert to Asia. I particularly love the Sketchbook section of his site, where you'll find sketches and notes about Paul's adventures among indigenous honey hunters in Malaysia, his portrait photographs from Guatemala, and some sound advice for beginning illustrators (and other creative artists) on how to create a business plan. Also, please visit the Art Party section of the site where you can purchase original art by Paul and a number of other wonderful artists -- the proceeds of which go to a fund to help with the health expenses of Paul's daughter.
Salon.com has posted a good article on one of my art heroes, Natalie Jeremijenko: "The Artist as Mad Scientist" by Kevin Berger. (If you're not a Salon subscriber, you can enter the site with a free day pass by watching a short ad.) Jeremijenko is a truly interstitial artist, working in the borderlands between conceptual art, performance art, science, and political activism. Her latest piece involves placing polycarbonate tubes in Manhattan's Hudson River that will glow when fish swim through them -- as part of a project commenting on the pollutants that fish ingest, including all the anti-depressants flushed through the urine of New Yorkers, down the sewers, and into the rivers. You can also find an interview with Jeremijenko (on her Robot Dogs and other projects) on the WorldChanging website, info on her One Trees project here, and info on the Critical Art Ensemble ("dedicated to exploring the intersections between art, technology, radical politics, and critical theory) here.
I've just discovered these e-postcards by the British sculptor Peter Randall-Page. Peter lives in a neighboring village here in Devon, and it's pure enchantment to stumble across one of his beautiful pieces at the end of a row of ancient beech trees or on a riverside path through the woods. More of his imagery can be found on the other pages of his website. The granite sculpture pictured here is called The Dreaming Stone.
Neil Gaiman: M Is for Magic
This is a collection of previously published short stories, ostensibly for young adults but fun for all. Neil Gaiman narrates the audio version, and his skill at reading aloud makes the anthology a real treat. (J. Bluth)
Donna Gillespie: Lady of the Light
A compelling novel of Pagans and Romans; rebellious barbarians rattling the gates of the Empire -- and the indomitable warrior woman who stands on the threshold of both worlds. Great historical details, fierce battles, and intrigues, all properly seasoned with the right amount of fantasy. This is the sequel to
The Light Bearer. (M. Snyder)
Michael Swanwick: The Dragons of Babel
This is a wonderful serpentine of a book, constantly coiling back on itself and changing. It skillfully interweaves various mythologies and allusions, to an effect that is both jarring and beautiful. A compelling read, and gorgeously written, I highly recommend it. (K. Howard)
Brian Barker: The Animal Gospels
This gorgeous poetry collection draws on animal imagery, folklore and myth to explore cultural history and contemporary life in the American south. Powerful work. (T. Windling)
Peter Hoeg: The Quiet Girl
Hoeg's latest is a thoroughly interstitial novel: part literary thriller, part urban fantasy, part post- catastrophe sf, set in near-future Copenhagen and told in rich, labyrinthine prose. This fascinating, atmospheric story may be my favorite of Hoeg's books since his haunting, best-selling Smilla's Sense of Snow . (T. Windling)
Oh Jung-hee: The Bird
The fantasy in this book is imaginary rather than actual (the heroine's brother believes that he can fly, like his cartoon hero Astroboy), and Jung-hee's use of folklore is sparing (but powerful nonetheless). This beautifully written Korean novel explores family dysfunction and violence against children in ways far beyond the cliche, examining the passage of its young heroine from abused girl to abuser. It's a simply amazing read. (T. Windling)
Jonathan Carroll: Glass Soup
Like many mythic fiction readers, I'm a big Jonathan Carroll fan--despite the fact, or maybe because of the fact, that I find his books so disturbing. Somehow I missed the publication of Carroll's Glass Soup, published last autumn. Good lord, this writer just gets better and better. The novel is a sequel to White Apples, and like the former is odd, outrageous, hilarious, infuriating, and occasionally profound. Carroll wrestles with some big themes here: the nature of love, the nature of religious belief, the nature of life and death itself. (T.Windling)
Jeanette Winterson: Tanglewreck
Time has lost its moorings. Time tornadoes are ripping through London, depositing artifacts from centuries past and stealing people from the present.... So starts the story of eleven-year-old Silver, who has been living with her selfish aunt ever since her family vanished under suspicious circumstances -- until the strange Abel Darkwater shows up looking for a missing clock called the Timekeeper, purported to control all of Time. I've long been a fan of Winterson's writing, and so I wondered what her first book for children would be like. Ultimately, there's a big adult life message in the story...nevertheless it's a fun read, full of quirky characters and adventures. [Read a longer review here.] (J. Bluth)
Ekaterina Sedia: The Secret History of Moscow
a wry political satire of Moscow in the 1990s with a richly imagined underworld, populated by Russia's iconic fairy tale figures -- from the smallest of the domovoi (house spirits) to the powerful Koschey the Deathless. Readers will find this novel thoroughly engaging -- whether one is new to Russian history and folklore or already well versed in both. [Read a longer review here.] (M. Snyder)
Ellen Kushner: The Golden Dreydl
This children
