Overgrown

I may have drained every library in Ann Arbor of all its books. While my still furniture-less studio was barren before, now it is overgrown with stacks and stacks of books. I feel quite at home in this little forest of knowledge.

So as you may have already guessed, there was a lot of researching accomplished this week. Two hours in the library on Sunday, 3 hours of reading on Monday, and another hour in the library, other countless hours I can’t keep track of - minutes on the bus, spare time between class, time when I should have been doing homework for other classes, maybe even some time during my other classes (certainly not through Stats!) - just reading and looking and thinking and writing and looking and reading some more

Books I am currently reading/investigating include (but are not limited to):

• American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau: I've owned this anthology for over a year now, and it is probably my all-time best purchase. With excerpts from Thoreau, Michael Pollan, and everyone in between, I like to pick it up whenever I have a spare minute and see what I can learn. I read a few passages this week, but two in particular struck a chord with me. First, Alice Walker's "Everything is a Human Being," in which she writes a brilliant dialogue between her and some trees in a park, her and the spider she kills in her garden, and several other morally-conflicting circumstances between man and nature. Her title maintains her conclusion. Perhaps my favorite quote though, comes from Barbara Kingsolver, who writes "I write a good deal by hand, on paper, which - I somehow can't ever forget - is made from the macerated hearts of fallen trees." As I evaluate my own use of materials, these words echo in my head.
  

• Vitamin D: New Perspectives in drawing by Emma Dexter- I need need need to invest in this book. It is an incredible collection of contemporary drawings, and for a girl who grew up only studying the traditional masters of drawing and thinking no one today really still cared (of course I know now that's not true), I feel like a nerd discovering chess club. Like, wait, there are other nerds out there!? WHY didn't anyone tell me sooner!? Future posts will surely feature artists that I am just now discovering in this book. (P.S. I'm a total nerd so stereotype is acceptable).

• Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color by Philip Ball - If I'm concerned about color and the effects of my materials on the environment, I should learn how the use of toxic chemicals in color came about, right?

• Paradise by Design: Native Plants and the American Landscape by Kathryn Philips - The author follows landscape architect Joni Janecki as she and her design firm fight for the health of the American Landscape. Basically, I want to be this woman when I grow up. Seriously, I'm looking into landscape architecture for grad school. Plus, the book includes history of landscape architecture, briefings about various landscape architects, native plant bios, and scientific studies proving that time spent in nature improves your ability to focus later. My thoughts on life, bound in one book.

I also reflected on past work, especially my pieces from Switzerland. After the first assignment in our writing workshop this week, I really can't stop thinking about it. Take a look:

Both of these pieces were inspired by les vignes de Sierre. The small town, so delicately placed in a valley of the Swiss Alps, was flooded with them - these rolling, dancing, quilt-like waves of leafless trees. I was enthralled.


Each tree was drawn with watercolor and bit of colored pencil.



The miniature sculptures were originally in jars, but a professor suggested I unleash them. I think this one is thanking me for its release.

As alive as these trees were, I couldn't help but notice the metal posts and wire fencing that organized their every growth. The fencing directed their every move as they marched across the land, a natural militia of hired mercenaries for the region's age-old wine industry. They seemed healthy and happy enough though, and these iron posts did support them, not to mention the local economy. But how, then, did they grow before man bound them to these metal shackles? The trees were a tangible visualization of my own conflicts with nature, and my artwork became a grappling study of that conflict.

With all this accumulating thought this week, my brain suffered some major overload. So much inspiration, so much information. Too much maybe?

So I made thought maps on the wall of my studio. "Map" seems like a misnomer. They are not quite as directive as a map, but it's helped my head feel a little less heavy. I included lists of possible materials (drawing with lemon juice, drawing with sticks dipped in ink, using resalvaged wood as drawing surface, etc). I also wrote down themes and quotes I want to consider. I even have a whole "What if" section (What if whole forests were as economically valuable as lumbered forests? What would that world look like? What if I drew on anything but paper? What if my drawings were on layers of tracing paper, then lit from behind? What if to keep the drawing lit and visible, the view had on a treadmill to generate electricity? What if I burned drawings of trees into paper, burning trees into trees?...)

Anyways, my final point: In the midst of all this thinking, a little drawing did occur, but not nearly as much as I would have liked. In the interview we read for our writing workshop this week, however, Philip Guston states,

“I work to eliminate the distance or the time between my thinking and my doing.”

I think this week I’ve only increased that distance, so this coming week and weekend I'd like to reverse that cycle. I'm heading back to the homeland this weekend (love my Cleveland), so I plan to forage my house for stray surfaces to draw on or with, which I am sure my house has plenty of. I'm hoping by the end of the weekend I have a nice harvest of reused or recycled material with which to create all next week.

Lastly, my featured Creator of the Week. I'm mandating this requirement for myself - one artist, writer, creator, or overall world-improver, every week, on this blog. Anyways, this week's feature:

Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy's work is why I feel I cannot restrict myself to drawing. His work is ephemeral, beautiful, and directs attention to nature in a way that is hard to overlook. He has been a major influence on my thoughts about life and art. Without doubt, I will be looking to his work this year as a source of an encouragement and inspiration.

And with that, take a deep breath. This blog post is finally over.