“If one wants something to be preserved for the ages, the clear choice is to use Rock; which very slowly decomposes over time.”

I was considering this statement (which I heard on TV) and thinking about monoliths, (think Easter Island), Stonehenge, the pyramids… and on a smaller scale: graveyard markers (headstones). 

As any parent will tell you- rocks are not the only surface that withstand the marching onslaught of elements- of water, heat and time. I’m not sure exactly what certain plastic mailboxes and FisherPrice wagons, cars and toy-boxes are made of, but I’m fairly sure that when this body’s long gone, these surprisingly durable plastic items from my kids’ childhoods will be sitting (smirking) in landfills, providing homes for rats and not yet decomposed at all!

Riding by a cemetery the other day on my way to the AANE office (and the pizza restaurant afterwards,) my mind clearly and colorfully envisioned this thought of durable almost indestructible plastics. 

And it amused me because this type of plastic used for FisherPrice and other companies, (Phthalates? Flexible polyvinyl chloride plastics? PVC? yes some of this is banned but not in older stuff…) comes in so many colors. 

Now is when I insert a photo of a cemetery flocked with plastic tombstones instead of rock…a photo depiction that I made on PhotoShop, with durable plastic FisherPrice/style headstones instead of rock ones. 

((( No, I did not go to that trouble but because I envisioned it- perhaps you can too.)))

Also, you may get a glimpse here of what it’s like inside my head. 

Stopping at an out of the way eatery I saw this graffiti inspired wallpaper which repeats in a pattern. A different look for a pizza place. 

Along the now familiar route to Watertown Massachusetts (close to Boston) the other day, in addition to imagining colorful cemeteries, I was enjoying the last sights of bare limbed trees. 

Leaves are sprouting at last- green layers of tree clothing hiding the skeletal frameworks of trunks and limbs and branches. 

Leafless trees, bare to the cold winters, revealed beehives, twiggy nests for birds and squirrels and have fabulous crisscross designs. Such beauty in their open candor. I love the fractured. Patterns draw me in, so enjoying naked trees makes sense: mosaics and collage to name a few fractured things, have certainly inspired a lot of my frenzied art output:

These too, I created- inspired by the fractured:

I’m (kind of) versed in tree talk, although no human will ever ever know all there is to know about the wonders on this planet. And beyond it. 

I completely enjoy reading books on the way trees talk to each other. Books by dendrologists, ecologists, scientists, ecophysiologists, etc. are some of my absolute favorites. 

Here are just a few faves:

Though thankless at times, reclusive, and frustrating as pay and assignments often depend completely upon FUNDING, Hope nonetheless has my dream job. 

A fascinating read. 

I’m aware of the troubles trees endure, the uncertainty of their futures, the threat to their very existence, the deforestation/slaughter…the fact that without them the earth has no lungs. 

These are postcards meant to print and share. 

I urge you to find and watch (#cecilyStrong #Letterman) 

‘Years of Living Dangerously.’ 

Eye opening! Also, Leonardo Dicaprio’s

 ‘Before the Flood’. 

He hopes of course that his film will inspire climate action. I hope so too. I really do. 

Here is one of my favorite paintings which I painted during that infamous election timeframe:

This painting sold. I think the buyer lives in Florida. She should contact me and tell me that Moonshine Mosaic is happy in its new home because I mourn every painting that leaves me. 

These sold too:

I’m currently painting more trees. Here’s an unfinished portion of one:

So. You probably know that the Swiss are 100% fossil free.  Why aren’t other nations following suit? 

When certain presidents are trying to get out of the Paris Agreement, that is a BIG part of the reason why. 

So, here is where I went on my trip to Watertown, the AANE office. I’m reflected in the glass. 

Along the roadside, I saw heaps of sawdust, stumps big and little, necessary trimmage so trees don’t creep up to the roadside bit by stealthful bit,

 starting as errant seeds, 

then saplings, 

trotting their slow nearly undetected way to roads and highway edges, 

meaning to lengthen the expanse of the woods that they know (their communities) 

by daring to populate nearer and nearer to the roads. 

But noisy saws and treehackers stop the process, which left unchecked, can eradicate our byways. As trees extend roots underground, pavement cracks away. As limbs become large, their arms threaten to fall on passing cars or take down pylon cables. 

So I viewed the hacked remnants and I do understand that the little and big stumps all along roadways, are necessary for safe human travel. Trimming back tree communities. I mourn every one though, every stump, and the unfulfilled promises of them;  just the same. 

I know that if I did not continually hack at my virtually indestructible wackadoo vines (that’s my word for them-the bigger invasive vines down south are called Kudzu) they would be burrowing under the house siding, creeping under the back door and into the house (they’ve done both these things when I wasn’t looking). They’d eat away the house. 

They actually grow when I’m not looking. Here is a totally unexpected little white mushroom that sprung up from the roof of my fairy house when I wasn’t looking. Can you see it?

People and trees and mushrooms are fairly resourceful and resilient but unlike rocks and even FisherPrice plastic, we trees and people and mushrooms depend on the earth to sustain us. 

(The Lorax is the voice of trees.) 

As such, the Lorax is or should be in all of us. There has to be an informed knowledge of this- a balance between nature and humans. 

Im working on a drawing just now. So that’s it for now. DO look up those films. 

Apathy is Kudzu

Filed under: adapting, art Tagged: deforestation, ecolgy, environment, trees