The Slow Whisper of Trees- A portfolio

Trees are history, they hold our memories, they have seen things. They are life, love, loss. They are figures upon our landscape essential and necessary, but often taken for granted, or never really seen. Trees are beautiful but can have a menace about them too, stick thin and towering sometimes, bent and knarled at others. Solitary sentients of our world or pulsating swathes of forest. They have stood as guardians over us for centuries, as silent witnesses. They bear the marks of living upon their bodies, much as we do.

The Slow Whisper Of Trees is in part a visual poem of all these ideas, but it is also an exploration of my own fears, and wonderment as I make my way in this world. A small musing on the cyclical nature of things; of memory, loss, impermanance, balance. A reminder of the interconnectness of all things.

All images © Claire Gilliam

It started with a whisper.

That sound upon the air

Frozen, held, suspended

Then propelled forward

Into time, towards End.

Imprinted upon the land

Stories are told then

Of this cyclical life

And our place in it.

Our birth, our death.

These are our whispers

Echoed upwards, and on

Circles of thought and 

Connected history 

Cradled by long limbs.

Amongst the deep crevices of

Bark and branch

Inky memories etch their way

To coil our loss and love

tightly bound, taken root.

For anyone who cares to look,

Delve deep and long

Or to quietly sit and listen,

The slow whisper grows loud

To tell beyond our decay.

Trees in Winter

I'm in no way a digital photographer, but I do like to mess around on my i-Phone camera! Its so convenient because its usually always on me! Anyway, yesterday, on my bus journey into the City, I was so taken with how beautiful the woods along the Skyline Drive looked, with fresh snow fall and sparkling with ice, (and with my project in mind) that I just had to snap a few pictures. There are of course limits to the control on this little camera, and you just have to accept what you get more often then not, especially when on the move as I was in a NJ Transit bus! Having played with them a little in i-Photo this morning, I am happily surprised by the images. I thought I'd share them with you.

Mysterious Meadowlands

As I've been working on my project in the city, I have been commuting into NY by bus two or three times a week. It can get a little tedious but some stretches of the journey pass through interesting and beautiful areas; Long Pond, Monksville and Wanaque Reservoirs enroute to the Skyline Drive, NJ. Each time I pass, I take in the view, and each time, there is something different and magical to behold; like the dark primeaval stumps sticking out from the frozen whiteness of the winter's ice, or the mist steaming above the water on a crisp early morning. 

Then there is the area known as the Meadowlands, about two miles outside of Manhattan in New Jersey. I'm fascinated by this place, it's a strange mix of industry, deteriorating buildings, new hotels and wetlands, and I can imagine that most people simply do not see it. It's just a place to drive through quickly with out much thought. Indeed, at first glance the area is a mass of highways shuttling commuters back and forth to NYC, punctuated with pylons, and all manner of industrial towers, bordered with unattractive looking suburban towns named Secaucus, East Rutherford, Kearney, together with the Giants Stadium, and Continental Airlines Arena, with big billboards announcing such acts as Rod Stewart, and the American Idol top 10 finalists. They've even broken ground to build one of the biggest shopping malls in the country. It all reminds me of Walker Evans' photograph of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in which you can clearly see the layers of industrial and human development expand within the environment over time.

1935 - Graveyard and Steel Mill, Bethlehem, PA

But there is something very mysterious about the Meadowlands too. I see an incredible beauty and life in the grasses, and the waterways. It changes too with the quality of light. I have even found myself not minding the made-made scars that have intruded onto the natural landscape when everything is bathed in the fading glow of early evening. There's something very interesting about the juxtaposition, highlighting human nature to conquer the environment, to its detriment or not. I know nothing about the history of the Meadowlands but my interest has been sparked. Actually, my imagination had been captured a few years ago, after I read a National Geographic article about the renewal of these wetlands after decades of pollution, (my step son told me the other day that the place reeks of sulphur, though I wouldn't know about that since I am sealed in a NJ transit bus and haven't set foot on the lands themselves), and by Mark Helprin's descriptions of the Marshlands overlooking Manhattan (set in early industrial age) in his spectacular novel, Winter's Tale. Although I am not nearly as poetic and lyrical as Helprin, the other day I was inspired to write my own ode to the Meadowlands.........

Journey Home

Deep impenetrable grey

The backsplash colour of my journey home

Dusk slips to night and industry

suddenly illuminates it's beauty.

Meadowlands frame cell towers 

and factory columns,

their myriad shapes radiate against muted skies.

Then grasses and strips of silver water

give way to habitation.

Row upon row of clapboard 

crammed across my horizon.

Asphalt rivers cut a diagonal line above

silky metallic threads of liquid.

Struts reflected in the smoky stillness

turning this apparent ugliness on its head.

I travel this way roundtrip:

New York State, New Jersey, Manhattan

Re turn.

The patchwork topography of this waterlogged marsh

beckons as I pass, decoding its history

before progress marched in.

This strip of land, remnant of bygone time,

holding skyscrapers and rambling sprawl alike,

has never looked so beautiful.

I leave you with some images and some links of photographer, Joshua Lutz. His first monograph was published last year, and is entitled Meadowlands, and is a decade long visual exploration of this area and it's people. The images are incredible. Also worth watching is this short video podcast in which Lutz talks about the project.

A winter day

It's treacherous in Warwick, NY.....weather wise that is. There is a nasty ice storm in progress which began last night, and doesn't show any signs of letting up. I am marooned inside my house for the day, and happily so, for it looks bleak and uninviting outside. The world outside my door has turned into a giant ice-rink for which I have no skates, and certainly no balance for. So I gaze upon this grey winter scape from my studio window, watching an increasing amount of ice build itself upon the branches of trees, and ice crystals form like a blanket across the lawn. An ice storm is something to behold. It can be a majestic sight when there are blue skies, and sun to transform the ice into dazzling jewels. But as I discovered last year, it is much more dangerous than a heavy snow storm. It can reek havoc, bringing down utility cables, and giant tree limbs, the weight of the ice too much to hold. Already this morning I have witnessed such an amputation.....it's not a pretty sight. The poor lilac trees are bowing under the weight, and look like they could snap at any moment. The pear tree looks under a similar strain. I heard on the radio this morning that great swathes of trees have come down upstate, in Syracuse. It puts me in mind of the hurricane we experienced in the south of England in October 1987. Everywhere you went trees were laid down across the roads, once densely wooded areas thinned out to unrecognisable states. Such is mother nature, I suppose, she will do as she wants. I understand from the UK news that Britain has also been feeling on the chilly side after being hit with some of the coldest weather in a couple of decades. I came across these images on the Guardian Newspaper website www.guardian.co.uk (always a great source of information, and cultural interest).

Snow blankets fields in Kuttlehume, Cheshire, UK

Livestock Shelter From The Snow, Sittingbourne, Kent, UK

This particular image reminds me greatly of Paul Caponigro's wonderful image 'Running White Deer', something to do with the same framing, and backdrop of trees. Caponigro, a student of the great Minor White, is a photographer of great beauty, and eloquence. His muse is the landscape, mainly the New England landscape, but also that of Ireland, and Britain too. When you spend time with his work you begin to sense more than just the landscape itself but something spiritual, or mystical. You feel his connection with what he is photographing. Most recently he has been making still lifes, which also radiate this luminescence I see in his other work. I am intrigued by his studies of water and ice, and as they seem pertinent to my thoughts of winterness today I thought I would add these for you to look at.

Running White Deer, Wicklow, Ireland, 1967

 Frosted Window, Ipswich, Massachusetts, 1961

  River Ice, Newton, Massachusetts, 1960

Leaf in Ice, Nahant, Massachusetts, 1958

I have met Paul Caponigro. It was during my time at the Maine Photographic Workshops, or more specifically, Rockport College. I had been fortunate enough to have my image chosen to grace the front of the invitation postcards for the end of semester exhibition (along with Arduina Palanca, who coincidently is now married to Caponigro's son, John Paul). One day as I was leaving the offices of the school, a man sitting on the steps by the entrance who I'd seen around but didn't know, told me how much he liked my image. Not knowing who this man was, I quickly thanked him and went on my way. I later discovered that it was none other than the master himself, Paul Caponigro. A missed opportunity if ever there was one.

The Land and Home

While I still have Pat Barker's book in my mind, I thought I would elucidate a little on another thread of visual imagery her writing inspired in me. There are certain British writers who are able to capture the essence of English life to the tea......I don't mean the twee cream teas and scones, Miss Marple vision of England, more that through their descriptions, and dialogue they give the reader (at least this particular reader) a real sense of almost being there yourself. I can smell the quality of air, feel it wrap about me, feel the dampness or the clarity of the day as a character steps forward through woodland lanes, or takes a day trip to the coast on a cold blustery day.  I am not able to explain it really, except to say that it all seems to be about the evocation of the unique atmosphere a country has. When I read these writings, my heart longs to be there, a strong response that is emotional and physical, revealing an unseverable connection to my homeland. It conjures memories, and wistful longing.

There are a couple of British photographers who came to mind immediately as I read certain passages: Fay Godwin, who died in 2005 aged 74, photographed the British landscape, capturing quintissential Britishness, both in the land and the characters who lived and worked on it. They are beautiful and mysterious, illustrating the sometimes bleak and barren topography of the UK. 

Beadnell Bay, Northumberland 1991

Path and Reservoir, Lumbutts, Yorkshire, 1977

Top Withens, Calder Valley, 1977

Social Security Office, Yorkshire, 1971

Between 1993 & 1996, Magnum photographer, Mark Power set out to make a series of images based on the locations of the Shipping Forecast, broadcast for seafaring folk four times daily on BBC Radio 4. The names of these remote lands, such as Viking, Cromerty, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, create imaginings of enigmatic and romantic landscapes. The Shipping Forecast suits the notions of an Island Nation. Although many of these places aren't located off the coast of the UK, but other European nations like France, Germany and Iceland, in the images below of the northeast English coast, Mark Power has managed to capture that atmosphere I have been attempting to explain. 

Tyne

Sunday 25th July 1993

West or southwest 3 0r 4 increasing 5 or 6. Showers. Good.

Tyne

Sunday 25th July 1993

West or southwest 3 or 4 increasing 5 or 6. Showers. Good.

        

All this talk of my homeland has had me thinking about what it means to shift your roots from one country to another.  More than ever before, people are on the move, either by choice or necessity. Does your birthplace define you, in some way, and if that is the case, then does the nature of who you are change when you no longer live there?  It's an interesting thought, and one that I return to every now and again as I live my life away from my birth place, and my family, in a country full of immigrants. Jhumpa Lahiri, in my opinion a brilliant American author of Bengali descent, delves deeply into this subject in all three of her books, the most famous one being 'The Namesake', but 'Unaccustomed Earth' is well worth a read too. Her characters have usually emmigrated from India to America. This essentially seems to make for a melancholy life attempting to embrace American Culture as their own, and most often in the case of their children, who are commonly born in the USA, the struggle to connect with their Indian heritage and find their rightful place in America. Ultimately they can never disconnect with their roots, begging the question, where do you belong? There is a sense of neither here or there perhaps. I am fascinated my these ideas, and it has inspired the desire to explore further in visual terms this notion of belonging. 

Some Autumn Colour

All images © Claire Gilliam

I start out today with a couple of shots of Autumn Colour, taken in my back yard........it's been quite amazing this year and I have recently had a burst of enthusiasm for getting out the digital camera, (and also the colour film!) to capture some of it. In fact I am heading out shortly to Wawayanda State Park, NJ in search of some more autumn splendour.

News this month.........

Since I last posted, I have discovered that I will not be awarded the Photographer's Fellowship Fund. Initially I was disappointed but have got over that very quickly! There's always next year, and I hoping I'll have an even stronger body of work to put forward.

 The 1st November marks the opening night of the Annual Small Works Show at Bertoni Gallery in Sugarloaf, NY. It is a small venue, but fun to enter. This will be my 3rd year exhibiting work at this gallery: three photographs from 'Family Matters'. My husband Gene will also be showing a piece, a beautiful portrait of one of his sons.

The beginning of October marked the first weekend of the six month ICP course "The Independent Project" with Chuck Kelton, master printer to the likes of Danny Lyon, Helen Leavitt, and Mary Ellen Mark to name just a few, and a tremendous teacher to boot. The time spent working with Chuck, and my fellow students is exhilarating, and exhausting, but by the time Sunday evening comes around we are all infused with huge amounts of creative energy to see us through to the next class in a few weeks time. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I am working on printing some self portraits first made a year or so ago. I am really excited by these images, and can't wait to see them completed. The talent in this class is exceptional and I am very excited to see the final portfolios of work we all produce. If it is anything like last year's class we are all in for a treat. I will leave you with couple of links below....click on them to see the work of two of my fellow classmates projects: Jorge Luis Monteagudo, and Wendy Paton. Stunning and beautiful work........ 

flower contemplations

Snowblosson(2007)

pineneedles (2007)