Jewels of the Forest – an Artist Book
On my first research visit to the property, I looked up into an old red cedar. I stopped.
I was stunned.
Staghorns covered its thick, heavy branches. Rich green flourishes adorned them. Smothered them. They were delicate and strong, each one distinct, yet all held within the same tree.
They looked like jewels.
It was breathtakingly beautiful.
A view from inside the canopy
I remember that first encounter clearly. I also remember the first time I saw the drone photographs.
I was stunned again.
From the ground, I could look up and understand something of the tree’s scale. The drone offered a view I could never experience myself: high inside the canopy, looking down and across the branches.
The photographs revealed the staghorns from above. I could see how densely they occupied the cedar and how their green forms sat against the trunk and branches.
It was spectacular.
Three changing views
Jewels of the Forest is formed from three large hanging photographs.
The images move around the tree and gradually draw back. Each reveals more of the cedar, its branches and the staghorns growing across them.
They are three separate photographs, not sections assembled from different images.
Visitors have asked if they are composites made from several photographs. They are not. Each banner holds one photograph. Nothing within the images has been composited or retouched.
What appears in the photographs was there.
The abundance belongs to the tree.
Why is it an artist book?
An artist book does not need to be held between two covers.
What makes Jewels of the Forest an artist book is the relationship between its images, structure, sequence and time.
Each hanging banner acts as a page. The images are experienced in order, with each view changing how the next is understood. Instead of turning pages with their hands, the viewer moves along the work.
The view shifts.
The perspective changes.
More of the tree comes into sight.
The story unfolds through that sequence.
The book includes my poem, “Jewels of the forest”, offering another way to respond to the tree and the sense of awe I felt beneath it.
Giving the photographs physical presence
I always knew these photographs needed to hang.
The imagery had such impact that I wanted to present it as large as I could. I wanted the staghorns and branches to have a physical presence rather than being contained within a small page or frame.
Truth be told, I would have liked to make the banners twice their finished size. I worked within the practical limits of the materials and resources available to me while retaining as much scale as possible.
The three single-sided prints hang flat against the wall. Stained timber magnetic hangers, handmade by the property owner, hold each one in place.
Their making adds another connection to the property and to the people whose care has allowed the forest to return.
Lives held within a tree
The red cedar provides the staghorns with somewhere to grow above the forest floor.
The ferns anchor themselves to its bark. Their shield fronds collect water and falling organic matter. Each staghorn holds its own small ecosystem.
They are separate plants, yet they share the support of one tree and the conditions created by the surrounding forest.
This is what first held my attention when I looked up.
The beauty was immediate. Looking longer revealed relationship, dependence and many lives occupying the same space.
Through Jewels of the Forest, I wanted to share the scale and beauty of that first encounter, along with a view of the canopy that we could not otherwise experience.
I wanted the work to have impact.
I wanted someone standing before it to feel some of the astonishment I felt when I first looked up, and down.
Jewels of the forest
Tread.
Step.
Walk.
Meander.
My gaze follows the forest floor.
Then, I look up.
A red cedar
adorned with antlered shields.
Suspended worlds.
Quiet ecosystems.
Held firm
against textured bark.
Vibrant
green upon green.
Hidden beneath
the leafy canopy.
Summer passes.
Temperatures cool.
Leaves fall.
Antlered shields
revealed.
Weathering seasons
with natural grace.
Jewels of the forest.
Written by Kim Herringe, for the staghorns adorning red cedar trees, transforming trunks and branches into quiet galleries of forest life.
Colophon
Structure: Three-page suspended scroll book
Printing: Archival pigment prints on Awagami Kozo Thin White FineArt Inkjet paper, 70gsm
Hangers: Pine magnetic hangers, handmade by the property owner
Poem: “Jewels of the forest” by Kim Herringe
Photography: Kim Herringe
