A few pictures of our opening exhibit, Sunday, March 19, 2015.  Hard to capture the great event we had that day!  Thanks to Ed Justen for his addition of jazz sax during the reception.

Chelsea Scudder

I tend to notice trees. Craggy branches, textured barks, and raised roots catch my eye, often stealing my attention away from the more typical, man-made landmarks of the cityscape. Whether walking in Boston or far into the woods somewhere, my gaze inevitably skews upward – not always to the benefit of my feet – as I take note of leaf patterns and twig intersections.

I believe this tree-focus largely stems from my parents. My father – PhD in plant ecology and Nature Walker Extraordinaire – brought my brother and I on countless wonder-filled hikes in the woods which were sure to result in wild garlic tastings, mushroom collecting, and encyclopedic answers to any botany-themed question we could cook up. My mother – wire-sculptor, gallery owner – brought her creativity and aesthetic gifts to her organic landscaping business in Oklahoma for 20 years. She transformed unremarkable lawns into wild, alive things that flowed and spilled, drawing the eye through layers of flowers, native grasses, and freshly mulched Japanese Maples. I was a full-on garden snob by age 14.

A consciousness of the green and growing thus took root in me from an early age and it's no surprise that trees inevitably find their way into my lines of sight and trains of thought. In them I see shifting layers of shape and color, intricate carvings, fleeting casts of shade, subtle movements.

Tagging along with my uncle Gerry on a prescribed burn at Indian Cave State Park in Nebraska last spring was an opportunity to see trees as I had not seen them before. Not only did the burn offer a unique look into one aspect of the intimate human relationship to land, but the trunks and branches that  lurked in white smoke and among orange flames made for a stunning, eerie beauty that was great fun to photograph.

 – Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder

Sandra Chase Morrissey

 

    Trees surrounds us. Trees are everywhere I love to be. I find painting groups of Birch Trees most interesting. I love the combination of black and white and enjoy incorporating different  colors into the background and the shading.  As fond as I am of displaying numerous Birch Trees in one painting, I am even more excited to have my tree paintings besides other artists' tree artwork and view the creative forest.  Sandra Chase Morrissey, Living (and Painting) in Color!

 

"A man's character is like a tree, and his reputation like its shadow; the shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."  - Abraham Lincoln  

Ryan Kelley

One of Kelley’s most popularly commissioned and recognized sculptures are his wire trees, which he attaches to small granite boulders. The intricacy of the branches coupled with their fierce, windswept movement is reminiscent of mountaintop flag-trees, called so because of the heavy winds that make the tree’s branches grow in a banner-like shape. When observing the sculpture's tree trunk, which looks like an abstract spiral staircase winding upwards as it splays into spindly branches, one can’t help but feel as if the tree grew on its own.

“I live in the woods, I’ve always been surrounded by trees,” says Kelley. “The tree hanging on to a rock says a lot about the sculpture – perseverance, strength, and holding on tightly to something.”

Byfield's Wire Artist Ryan Kelley

Northshore Magazine.  By Alexandra Pecci  October 2014

"Stone and copper wire don’t typically exude grace, beauty, and warmth, but when they’re in the hands of wire artist Ryan Kelley something nearly magical happens. A stone becomes a solid, sturdy base for trees whose delicate metal branches twist, turn, and come alive, as though they’re caught in a breeze or about to burst into bloom.
“I can take a spool of melted metal and through twisting, you turn something that’s very harsh and very cold into something that looks alive,” says Kelley. “I like to be able to step back and say, it started as a five-pound spool and now it’s a two-foot tall tree.' 

What began as a word-of-mouth business for family and friends has quickly bloomed into something much bigger. He not only creates custom commissions that can fetch anywhere from $100 to $5,000 or more but has also been tapped by Beverly-based interior designer Amanda Greaves to create custom pieces for local businesses. “I think he has a really great energy,” Greaves says. “His trees are amazing.”

And although he’s young, Kelley, at 21-years, is already very involved in the North Shore arts community, working to bring a new, youthful vibe to seaside galleries that are so often crowded with paintings of ocean scenes in gilded frames. He’s a member of the Newburyport Art Association and also serves on its board of directors."

Paul Angiolillo

Paul Angiolillo

When Asia asked if there was anything special I wanted to say about trees, my reaction, after a moment’s thought, was: What’s not special about trees? What hasn’t been rightly celebrated about these giant creatures? I thought I’d Google some quotes about trees. Here are some of my favorites:

It has been said that trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment rooted in the ground. But they never seem so to me. I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far! ~John Muir, July 1890

You can live for years next door to a big pine tree, honored to have so venerable a neighbor, even when it sheds needles all over your flowers or wakes you, dropping big cones onto your deck at still of night.  ~Denise Levertov

The groves were God’s first temples. ~William Cullen Bryant

I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I’ll never see a tree at all. ~Ogden Nash,

Of all the wonders of nature, a tree in summer is perhaps the most remarkable; with the possible exception of a moose singing “Embraceable You” in spats. ~Woody Allen

Friedrich van Schoor, Tarek Mawad, and Achim Treu

Friedrich van Schoor and Tarek Mawad, creators. 

 Sound&Music by Achim Treu.

 Click here to view bioluminescent forest video

The projection mapping "bioluminescent forest" is made by artists Friedrich van Schoor and Tarek Mawad.    The artists spent six weeks in the forest fascinated by the silence and natural occurrences in nature, especially the phenomenon "bioluminescence". They personified the forest to accentuate the natural beauty by creating luring luminescent plants and glowing magical mushrooms that speaks volumes to any visitor that enters the minds of the artists through viewing "bioluminescent forest".


Contact details: friedrichvanschoor@gmail.com, tarekmohamedmawad@gmail.com. 
Please see: www.3hund.com  and the project page: www.bioluminescent-forest.com

Linda Whiting

Linda Whiting

 When I was old enough to climb trees I would spend whole days up as high as I could get and believe that I was a branch of the tree I had climbed.  I just sat there, quiet and connected to my larger branch or trunk.  I ws sure that I had leaves or pine needles but only I could see them.  It was trees that taught me how to meditate  Trees taught me to enter and live in that other space, a space of complete connection.   Later, I found this poem my Michael Glaser:

I have always felt the living presence of trees

The forest that calls to me as deeply as I breathe.

As though the woods were marrow of my bone

As though I myself were a tree, a breathing, reaching arc of the larger canopy

Beside a brook bubbling up to faom like the one deep

in these woods, that call, that whisper home.