Time around trees inspiration

These are some of the trees which have inspired the works in my current solo exhibition, ‘Time around trees’, along with some quotes from authors and scientists whose books have helped me understand and reflect on what I see.

bw crichton

Crichton shattered beech Near Crichton Castle, Midlothian

Here veteran beeches line a little hollow lane beside an Iron Age Fort and a neighbouring field boundary.

When I first found the site on a walk with a friend, one tree stood out in particular for its striking form, following the collapse of one of the main limbs in a recent storm.  Its distinctively separate twisting trunks suggest that it may have been €˜bundle planted€™, where several saplings are planted together to give the impression of an older tree.  Its surface is patterned with scars and marks from graffiti, barbed wire fencing and hole boring insects.

‘Which bits of our aesthetic or emotional consciousness do rot-holes and calluses touch. What deep-rooted associations do old trees conjure up?  Are they some kind of portal to understanding the deep relationship between wildness and time?€™

Richard Mabey, Beechcombings

 

bw dalkeith

Dalkeith burred oak Dalkeith Country Park, Midlothian

These ancient oaks, in their rare wood pasture landscape, evoke for me the difference between a tree€™s lifespan and that of a human. 

Likely to have been at least 400 years old when it died, this tree continues to provide habitat and sustenance to the organisms of the woodland.  The bark has rotted and been returned to the soil, revealing the whorls and contortions of the underlying structure. It could stand for another 200 years, dead but filled with life.  As if to emphasise the point, a crow flew suddenly out of one of the holes in the trunk as I was drawing.

€˜…the burr is an excrescence of would-be buds rising from somewhere deep inside the tree like a spring… A burr may arise as a reaction to some itch in the tree, a kind of benign wood tumour.  What begins as disfigurement ends life as an opulent adornment.€™

Roger Deakin, Wildwood

 

bw hopetoun

Hopetoun half tree, Hopetoun Estate, West Lothian

Before it was lopped, this beautiful beech by the side of the Bo€™ness Road was a marker in the landscape for me on a regular route near home.  Then one day it had simply been beheaded €“ perhaps it was deemed to be unsafe or diseased. 

The remaining stump was at once shocking and fascinating, as the removal of the branches had revealed the torso-like sculpture of the trunk.  The problems of drawing trees that I was struggling with then had been solved by the chainsaw, and a whole body of work was inspired.

€˜…trees are wildlife just as deer or primroses are wildlife.  Each species has its own agenda and its own interactions with human activities. If all trees were like the ideal, they would lose most of their significance, all their historic meaning, most of their beauty and most of their value as habitat.€™

Oliver Rackham, Woodlands

 

bw newbattle

Newbattle graffiti beech, Newbattle Abbey College, Midlothian

In the grounds of this adult education college and former Cistercian abbey, stands this single large beech on the banks of the South Esk. It has accumulated decades€™ worth of carvings, initials, dates and symbols on every accessible surface. The oldest decipherable date is 1945, perhaps because there were Italian prisoners of war held in the grounds and the house was used as barracks during the war. 

Coins are pressed into the bark along the tree€™s massive lower limb.  It€™s evident that hundreds of human lives have had links with this tree.

€˜To walk through an ancient wood is to tread in the footsteps of the ghosts of those who once lived and worked in the medieval and early industrial countryside.€™

Ian D. Rotherham, Ancient Woodland: History, Industry and Crafts

 

bw novar fungus 2

Novar fungus beech, Novar Estate, Evanton, Easter Ross

I discovered this site on a family holiday and have drawn there in early spring for five consecutive years.

The Novar estate was laid out in the mid 1700s as a deer park and as a symbol of the laird€™s status. It has many great old trees, but the beeches there are special for me.

This solitary beech stands in the parkland wearing its convoluted crown covered in lichens, its trunk stacked with bracket fungus which is recycling the heartwood.

€˜… at each place where [the tree] has been bent or cut it has grown stronger, swelling into a callous like a human knee or puckering into a bump of scar tissue round the little star-cracked crater of each amputated branch.  Every one of these details represents a decision, a little setback for the tree to which it responds with redoubled vigour…€™

Roger Deakin, Wildwood

 

bw scone

Scone grafted beech, Scone Palace Grounds, Perthshire

I was introduced to this tree on an Ancient Tree Forum site visit in Perthshire.

Clearly planted as an ornamental tree, this beech reflects in its bark the battle going on between the common beech rootstock and the copper beech grafted onto it.  The join is unusually high, which accounts for the very visible bulges, bosses and scars, and which immediately attracted me to draw it.

€˜A known tree was a solid link with the past, an embodiment of continuity.  It could be welcomed as one of the family €“ or at least the family estate.  It could be appropriated as a trophy, a proof of clever husbandry, a symbol of ancient occupation or social standing.€™

Richard Mabey, Beechcombings

share:

Meeting some tree people

So what’s so special about trees? And why is it always the old and gnarly ones I go on about?

Dalkeith-84-charcoal

It’s fairly obvious to anyone looking at my work that I have a deep and enduring interest in trees – the origins of which I’ve talked about in other posts.Over the last five years or so, my drawings have developed in parallel to my knowledge of and appreciation for trees, their history, ecology and our cultural links with them.

The more I read and understand about them as a subject, the better I feel that creative connection which is essential for me to make good work. There are some key books which have influenced me, but even better than reading is meeting real people sharing their expertise and passion.

So last week I went along to the Ancient Tree Forum’s Highland Gathering in Perthshire to meet some proper tree people and hear talks and discussions on things ancient and arboreal.The morning session in Perth included talks on themes around wood pasture, parkland, tree recording and preservation, Atlantic hazel woods, along with perspectives from England and Scotland.

in_the_field

Our afternoon was spent literally in the field, meeting some of Scone Palace’s historic and impressive trees.

Scone_palace

Donald Rodger (in the green coat), author of ‘Heritage Trees of Scotland’ introduced us to a massive sitka spruce.

Donald_and_sitka

Ted Green, ATF founder and president, speaking beside the James VI/I sycamore.

Ted_and_sycamore

My favourite tree from the field visit was a huge copper beech.The strange contortions in its trunk are due to the copper beech tree being grafted onto common beech rootstock at an unusually high graft point.

grafted_beech

So what did I learn? Loads more than I can write but here’s a start…

  • They are really rare, very rich habitats which are only just beginning to be understood.
  • Our ancient trees and treescapes have very little protection from destruction or damage – even relatively recent important buildings have much more protection.
  • They are irreplaceable – planting new trees is not enough.They are complex ecosystems that have evolved over hundreds, quite possibly thousands of years.
  • They are a living link to our past, representing a depth of history which can be hard for us short-lived humans to comprehend – for example the oaks I draw in Dalkeith Country Park are known to be at least 500 years old.
  • Death and decay is a very important part of this ecosystem.An old tree with bracket fungus growing from it is not necessarily a sick or fragile tree – the fungus is recycling material that the tree no longer needs, making the nutrients available to the tree roots again.
  • Hollow trees are especially important for the habitats they provide for all kinds of creatures, plants, fungi and lichens.
  • There’s a growing movement of people – campaigners, scientists, ecologists, academics, arborists, historians and artists of course, who are raising awareness and appreciation of this amazing heritage that we have.

There’s more about the Ancient Tree Forum’s work on their website, or try the interactive map to find your own special trees – let me know about your visits.

You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone…

share: