Deforestation

This piece focuses on mourning the loss of a felled tree. Prior to creating this piece I read Richard Powers' book The Overstory. I was filled with admiration, appreciation and sadness. I admired the beauty of trees themselves and the people who defend them, I appreciated the passion the characters had for the natural world, and it was a sad reminder of the pain humans are causing on the natural world.

This piece was a direct response. I felt the need to work in a color-less medium, and I chose black ink wash because black is the color of mourning. Black being associated with death, loss, and mourning helps to create the depressive atmosphere of this piece. My goal was to show the way that the forest crys out when a tree falls under the ever-whining saws of logging companies. A tree falling is it's final celebration of the life it provides, supports, and contains. The fall of a tree is the last motion, the last wave of its branches, the last falling of its needles or leaves, before it's truly gone.