TreeMuse

June 9 – July 7, 2016

Opening reception: Thursday, June 9, 5-7p.m.
Gallery talk: 5:30p.m.
Marjorie Greville: Caring for Emerald Necklace Trees 

Image credit: Sandra Allen, Stalwart, 7×12 feet, Charcoal on paper, 2005.

Sara Maitland, author of the marvelous From The Forest, describes the environmental changes that occurred thousands of years ago – “as ice shrank back towards the polar regions, the forests (and the trees that inhabited them) chased it northwards as far as they could, and homo sapiens followed the forest. Right from the beginning, the relationship between people and forest was not primarily antagonistic and competitive, but symbiotic.”

For the six artists in this exhibit, the tree is an iconic and endless font of inspiration either as image, raw material or a source of sound. The artists in the exhibit are: Sandra Allen, Anthony Apesos, Ellen Band, Stacey Cushner, Mitch Ryerson, and Jessica Straus.

Sandra Allen says she is attracted to many different trees for many different reasons. Often the trees in the works come into her life in fleeting moments – something she sees on a walk or driving down a street. It’s a very intuitive reaction and attraction; one that she tries not to rationalize.

Anthony Apesos’s paintings, while indebted to the American realist tradition, are informed by a fascination with mythology and archetypical themes; in this respect, his work exhibits striking parallels with the visual art of the Romantic poet and artist William Blake. His paintings of trees are inspired by those in the Arnold Arboretum, one of the most significant projects of the nineteenth century landscape designer, Fredrick Law Olmstead.

Deeply inspired by the infinitely complex textures, rhythms, and colors within the so-called ordinary sounds of everyday life, Ellen Band uses the time-honored technique of field recording to collect the source material she uses for her pieces. She then fashions works, which reflect the imagistic, mnemonic, and psychoacoustic properties of sound. Having a strong background in both the 20th Century experimental music and sound art traditions, she crafts works, which transform familiar sounds into new contexts and forms. When Trees Speak has been created specifically for the TreeMuse exhibit.

Stacey Cushner draws burled trees, parts of trees, stumps; trees that may be forgotten from Boston’s historical parks and other places that have seen destruction from neglect and rising temperatures. Her drawings depict this depletion, strangeness and eeriness.

Primarily creating commissioned and public artworks including playgrounds, artist, designer, and craftsman Mitch Ryerson specializes in wood structures and furniture. He works with black locust wood that he sources from western Massachusetts. He says it grows in really interesting shapes, so it’s good for sculptural arrangements. Ryerson and his crew transform the logs with chainsaws, power planes, electric grinders, chisels, mallets, drawknives, adzes, axes and hatchets.  

Working in carved and painted wood and incorporating found objects, Jessica Straus explores the poetry of unexpected juxtapositions between recognizable and invented forms. Alternating between narrative and abstraction, Straus’s well-crafted sculpture is infused with a quirky, yet subtle humor and a finely tuned sense of aesthetics. 

Related program:
5:30 p.m.
Marjorie Greville: Caring for Emerald Necklace Trees

Marjorie Greville is a landscape architect and a member of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy Board of Directors.  As a member of the Justine Mee Liff Fund Committee, she helped to establish the Olmsted Tree Society in 2013 to make the preservation of the trees of the Emerald Necklace one of the Conservancy’s highest priorities. 

The Olmsted Tree Society funded a comprehensive tree inventory and conditions assessment of 7,000 trees in the Emerald Necklace, and the data collected resulted in a management plan that informs the work that is done to care for the trees and landscape in collaboration with the City of Boston (Parks and Recreation), Town of Brookline (Parks and Open Space) and the Commonwealth (Department of Conservation and Recreation).

Emerald Necklace Tree Project

The Emerald Necklace is one of the few remaining intact linear parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, America’s first landscape architect. Rarely does an urban environment combine the natural beauty of parks with all of the cultural attractions of a city. Even more rare is to find our most historic and valued trees woven in and out of city streetscapes. We have Olmsted to thank for this amazing planned canopy we all benefit from and can now protect. Undertaken in collaboration with the conservancy’s public partners, Boston Parks & Recreation, Brookline Parks and Open Space and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, the initiative intends to preserve heritage trees in these historic parks, some of which are more than 100 years old. In addition, the project will protect healthy trees with selective pruning and soil enhancement; plant new trees where needed in the Back Bay Fens, Riverway, Olmsted Park, Franklin Park, around Jamaica Pond and along the parkways of the Necklace. Even more important, the effort will help educate the public about the critical relationship between trees and a healthy urban environment in order to sustain ongoing support for the project.