Tree Stories woodland workshop

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What better place to be heading? The particular wood I was heading for last Friday was Ecclesall Wood, Sheffield and I had all my arty stuff with me to share some ideas and techniques in the second Tree Stories workshop.

 

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The venue was absolutely perfect – the Woodland Discovery Centre had it all, the friendly staff, lovely room, decking in the sunshine, ponds, beehives and most importantly of all it was situated right in the wood itself.

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I took the group on a tree graffiti expedition first, looking for different kinds of examples (there were loads), photographing them, doing some rubbings and just generally wondering about how the marks got there, who made them and why.

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It was surprisingly difficult to get a good image from the rubbings, as the bark was actually much more textured than it first appeared, but one member of the group had previous experience which she generously shared with the others.

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We discovered a group of sweet chestnuts, which we learned would have been planted there as a faster growing alternative to oak, destined to be pit props and fencing during the wood’s industrial past. The bark made beautiful patterned rubbings.

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Then on to the messy stuff – back in the centre we reviewed our photos and gathered our ideas, then made our own interpretations of tree graffiti in charcoal and crayon. I love how concentrated people become when they are absorbed in the act of making. One minute they are telling me they are “not really very creative”, the next they are totally in the moment, expressing themselves with such focus and energy.

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After a relaxing lunch in the sunshine we moved on to printmaking, using a simple technique as used in the first Tree Stories workshop.

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You get such quick and satisfying results with these polystyrene tiles that it’s easy to get carried away and the group made lots of prints in the afternoon, some of which will hopefully be on show in the project exhibition later this year.

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At the end of the day my fellow Tree Stories collaborator Sally Goldsmith arrived to say hello to the group and to enable the two of us to share our plans for the new work we’ll be making – it’s over to us now. I have a busy summer ahead…

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National Tree Week 2014

Since it’s National Tree Week this week, I thought I’d join in the celebrations and share some of my favourites…though every week is tree week for me really.

This monumental ancient oak is in the grounds of Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, lurking in the car park.

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My rather unimaginative name for this one is ‘Newbattle graffiti beech’, since that’s what’s so amazing about it – all those layers and years of carvings.  Here’s a drawing of it too.  I think more drawings from it will feature in my work for the Tree Stories project.

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A wooded landscape next, rather than an individual tree – Glen Finglas, a Woodland Trust site in the Trossachs and a very special wood pasture with many pollarded alders.  It’s a fair walk but a good track into the trees.

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Historic Scotland’s Inchmaholme island has a long and venerable history with its ruined abbey and its Mary Queen of Scots connections, but I got most excited about this twisted old chestnut – fabulously sculptural.

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Another sculptural one, this time a beech on the Novar Estate, near Alness, Easter Ross.  There’s a somewhat sinister quality to its deformity that attracted me, and it looked particularly impressive on the bright early spring day this photograph was taken.  I know it as ‘Novar fungus beech’ and here’s a drawing of the same.

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Finally, staying on the theme of the beautifully grotesque, is this beech I found alongside an abandoned road by the Cromarty Firth.  People who are expert in tree management suggested it was possibly pollarded, giving rise to the weird shapes.  It also bears graffiti from the 50s and so much character that it seems to demand a whole series of works, so I’m hoping to revisit it next spring to get started.

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National Tree week is about valuing and celebrating the trees we have now and ensuring that the generations that follow us can do the same.  All the trees I’ve shown here are quite probably at least 100 years old and some are thought to be as much as 400 years old – let’s allow them to age with dignity and nurture the young ones which will eventually replace them.

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