Ghost Stories from the Forest
Open AccessChanges in environmental systems reveal human interconnectedness with the land around them, but of course it would be true. Actions ripple without edges from humans to our immediate environment and then from our particular ecosystem outward. Effects of these actions that can be read through the passing of time through careful observation of change. As an artist, I observe changes in my own life and in the ecological and social communities of which I find myself a member, and I continue these observations in the studio and in my work. I can and do mourn the losses due to climate change and lament humanity’s lack of foresight. At the same time, rather than longing for what was before, I can acknowledge that existence is always impermanent, which allows me to loosen my grip on the past, as well as look at it with clarity. Embracing change as inevitable opens possibilities to imagine a completely new future, with all the knowledge gained by looking squarely at the past without grasping for it with nostalgic drama that could get in the way of admitting faults and mistakes. I remember learning about ecosystems as a child––a forest, a marsh, an ocean––but we didn’t spend time learning of the places where these systems overlap and rely on one another, leading me to think of them as autonomous environments in my logical mind. On the other hand, I grew up in the middle of North Carolina, so my sensorial experience with ecosystems was that they blur gently into one another: driving east from Fayetteville to Wilmington the pines melt into the marshes and then into the sea, driving west from Fayetteville, the lowlands give way to rock outcrops and rolling hills and finally the ancient Appalachian Mountains. There are no tidy lines between forest and marsh, or between myself and my environment. There are no words for these middle places, yet there they are, revealing their betweenness with gradual or sudden changes and inviting me to become a student of the interconnectedness of the world.
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