Nature as subject, not object
Listening to Robin Wall Kimmerer lit me up this week, most particularly her discourse on plants as people, and our growing awareness of plant cognition. I realise these themes show up in my work too.
If you’re not familiar with Robin Wall Kimmerer you have happy reading hours ahead. She is best known for “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants”. Her new book “The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World” is top of my wish-list.
I really enjoyed listening to her talk to meditation cheerleader, Dan Harris, in his 10% Happier podcast “The antidote to not enoughness” (released on 21st November).
As a botanist and citizen of the Potawatomi nation, Robin weaves together indigenous knowledge, shared over generations, with contemporary scientific teaching on plants to promote healing in our relationship to the natural world.
Robin’s work is profoundly moving, and I highly recommend it.
She prompts me to recognise that I have long related to individual plants and particularly trees, as “he/she” rather than it or that, not that I’d voiced this out loud. The trees in my art seem to dance and communicate; I think of them as radiating personality, old wisdom and communal life. In my mind, they are witness to all our antics.
Sadly, tree-life is also witness to - and victim of - our degradation of landscape and our planet. But I firmly believe trees will be key to helping us out of this terrible mess. For more on that, check out the Stump up for trees organisation.
Unsurprisingly, trees show up on many pages of my book, The Winding Light. So I thought I’d share an extract here, now Robin Wall Kimmerer has got me articulating this train of thought:
Return to trees
Oil and cold wax on paper, 2024
“High up above Y Gelli (Hay on Wye) as you drive out of the old
village, Craswall, there’s a copse of hawthorn trees that catch
the eye. I often slow the car as I pass so I can really study their
crouched, twisted shape and relationship to each other, that
‘space between’. They feel communal – a cabal of diminutive
trees, they have supported and shaped each other over many
years and seasons like a family.
Hawthorn has a dense thorny growing habit, and
fares well in the winds and winter weather.
Inevitably, they have shown up in my art, featuring here on a hot
summer’s day, with a cloud bank building on the horizon. The
trees almost seem to dance in the sultry heat.
The original painting is an oil and cold wax artwork on paper.
Cold wax medium replaces solvents, making it more eco-friendly,
and allowing me to draw into the surface, adding movement to
the piece.”
The Winding Light, Helen Arthur 2024
You can buy The Winding Light on my website with free postage in the UK.