After Shadows
11 pieces on single-ply plywood diverted from the waste-stream, generously donated by Swanson Group Manufacturing Lcc in Springfield, Oregon.
Green earths gathered on unceded Kalapuya lands, egg shell chalk, blackberry vine charcoal, oak gall ink, choke cherry gum; single-ply plywood.
Field Clothes Jumpsuit, designed, woven and sewn for the artist by Noelle Guetti, to be worn in the field while recording botanical shadows. Hemp and cotton dyed with onion skins, nettles and green earth.
After Shadows is a long-term project that has been many years in preparation, and is still in its early stages.
The project involves a registering of plant shadows as they are cast by the sun on stone cliff-faces or concrete structures in a variety of ecosystems on the planet. The shadows, which will hold seasonal and other information about the plants and their recording process, will serve as deep-time records, representing botanical life today.
The images which gave rise to this project are traces of human and other forms captured on concrete and stone surfaces during the nuclear detonations in Hiroshima at the end of the Second World War. The ‘nuclear shadows’ produced on August 6th, 1945 capture precise moments in the lives of the individuals they record — in this case their last instants preceding obliteration. In parallel, the botanical forms captured by the artist register plants as they exist in the looming shadow of the nuclear age, when each moment could feasibly be our last.
There are very few ancient pictographs of plants found in global rock art sites, and this provides further drive for the project. For reasons that are not well understood by today’s rock art experts, there is also very little application of green earth as paint at ancient sites. This project’s choice of green earth to render the plant shadows is, on a straightforward level, an acknowledgement of the hue expressed by botanical life and signature of our planet. But green earth has also been chosen for its geologic relationship with uranium. According to ochre expert Heidi Gustafson, green earths are sometimes found in sites high in radioactive minerals. These earths possess an unusual property: a powerful ability to block radioactivity. Due to this, green earths are used to cap buried nuclear waste dumps. This relationship, between radioactive minerals and the green earths that capable of blocking harmful emissions, has been observed, researched and explored by Gustafson, who has shared her findings with the artist. Gustafson’s insights serve to confirm the resonance green earths in this project.
The plant shadows are captured in the sites where they grow in real time, painted with green earths whenever available, gathered near the sites where the shadows are made. The fast-moving shadows are themselves reminders of time’s speed and the brevity of life: the tracing must be done quickly, and deftly. Mistakes reveal the flagging focus or energy of the recorder, therefore inner poise and exquisite attention result in greater accuracy and flow.
This series is a set of ephemera related to the preliminary stages of After Shadows. The artifacts represents eleven ‘practice sessions,’ made in meadows and urban wild zones near the Whilamut/Willamette River from May to July 2022 by the artist as preparation for the recording of plant shadows on rock cliff faces at yet-unchosen locations.
The ‘practice’ shadows were recorded on single-ply plywood intercepted from the waste-stream from a local plywood manufacturer. The thin, fragile wood, peeled from the cores of Douglas firs that grow near the recorded plants is flimsy and shatters easily, reflecting the delicate nature of the shadows themselves. The wood was carried to fields and river banks, providing surfaces for practice shadow-tracings. Whenever possible, each shadow was painted three times, creating a visual impression of the sun’s path. Different local green earths (some mixed with blackberry charcoal or egg shell chalk produced by the artist), and different plants and times of day were selected to provide a range of practice situations.
1. teasel : 07.13.22 : 7:50 to 9:39
2. cow parsnip : 06.29.22 : 18:13 to 19:47
3. teasel : 06.23.22 : 8:53 to 10:51
4. chicory : 07.14.22 : 8:17 to 9:53
5. teasel : 06.22. 22 : 10:20 to 11:39
6. queen anne’s lace : 07.01.22 : 9:21 to :10:12
7. red osier dogwood : 06.22 : 17:34 to 18:41
8. tarweed : 07.12.22 : 8:03 to 9:27
9. cow parsnip : 06.29.22 : 7:23 to 8:37
10. blackberry vine : 07.17. 22: 18:52 to 20:31
11. cherry tree : 06.21.22 : 7:17 to 9:35
The next stage of After Shadows involves partnering with land stewards interested in inviting the artist to the lands they tend to record plant shadows on cliff faces on site.
Photos by Byron Flesher, courtesy of form & concept.