Archive for the ‘ tree-lines ’ Category

windfell

Walking up the track in a stretch of euroforest, I start to take in the extent of storm damage It is staggering, but we are adjusting to the hill’s new shape. The western section was systematically felled last spring; last month it was moulded into lines, drains and brash-heaps ready for re-planting. The heavy machinery [ READ MORE ]

“Populus tremula, Tweedsmuir”

Last week, I took a couple of aspen cuttings to Dundee Botanical Gardens. They will spend a year or two in the nursery of the Native Plant Communities Unit (see http://www.dundee.ac.uk/botanic/garden/collections/) Their new labels announced them: Populus tremula Tweedsmuir. They will add genetic diversity to the collection, and are two of the eight I produced [ READ MORE ]

tree-lines / aspen

summary of project at Over Phawhope Bothy, Ettrick Valley, Southern Upland Way … the right to enter on to, roam on and pass over open country … Aspens grew on me, as a wild presence exercising their right to roam. Aspen trees are fragments of the wildwood that extended across Scotland after the ice age. [ READ MORE ]

plant-collecting on the A701

I travel many miles looking for aspen. No Populus tremula at Dawyck Botanic Gardens (a kind of Tree Zoo). Down the A701: a grove by the side of the road. I have permission to take a root cutting, but no-one to tell me which tree. Check the ID book: yes, it has diamond marks on [ READ MORE ]

Proposal: planting an aspen at Over Phawhope, Ettrick Head

This post is about the practicality of planting an aspen. The context: 2011 is International Year of Forests. An initiative of the Forest Bookstore in Selkirk has led to a group project – installations at a site in the ancient Ettrick Forest, at the head of the Ettrick Valley in Over Phawhope. ‘Phawhope’ might mean [ READ MORE ]

euroforest: Run, animals! Run!

In the uplands of the Scottish Borders, it’s mainly farming for sheep and trees – and now wind too. euroforest styles much of the landscape. (Not any company in particular  – I use a small ‘e’ generically.) I do not know who owns the patch next to where we live – but last Monday night [ READ MORE ]

thinking like a tree

In “Thinking like a  mountain”, Aldo Leopold wrote: Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf. I start by trying to think like a tree. Paper pulp, bits of spruce, an old tree guard. In a woodland management leaflet (from Fountains Forestry) a photograph shows lines of [ READ MORE ]

snags, and what they offer

Snags in snow, clear-felled forest: a photograph painted over to allow a focus on deadwood, and its generative possibilities. In Glasgow, Tacita Dean exhibits her version of painted over photos (only the trees retain their form – perhaps the point is within the gelatin surface). Camouflage manuals, Disruptive Pattern Materials, where figure and ground merge. [ READ MORE ]

on the idea of ‘tree-lines’, encountered on sheepwalks

sheep and trees held apart, cast as incompatible trees as shelter, human and non-human deadwood,  ‘snags’, woody debris snow modelling lines zones of clear-fell, replanting, first growth – delineated from pasture broadleaves in a valley – snow was so early this year, their leaves blew over the first fall blocks, ranks tree-lines -  a malleable [ READ MORE ]

Welcome

Welcome to this blog showing environmental artwork in progress by Kate Foster. Many thanks to everyone helping with fieldwork and taking time to comment.

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Contact Kate Foster by email: art@meansealevel.net

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Artwork and text © Kate Foster. If you quote this blog, please be sure to provide a link and inform me. Thanks.

Sheepscape Postcards

NOW AVAILABLE: a set of five cards introducing each of the sheepscape themes on this blog. Through the support of a CABN visual arts award, this artist's multiple is free while stocks last. To receive a set, just email Kate Foster on art@meansealevel.net giving a postal address
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