Our third workshop took place on the 11th -12th of September at The Forest of Dean. We worked with the Wye Valley AONB and Wildwood Coppice Crafts to think through how a performative and experiential research approach might be extended to working with trees. This is the second in a series of reflections on the workshop from our participants and is written by Clara Mancini.
I have never been very good with plants. When people give them to me my heart sinks as I know that I will likely be unable to look after them properly and they will, sooner rather than later, die. Unlike my cats, plants don’t shout at me when they want food, don’t jump on my lap when they want cuddles, don’t block my way when they want attention. They are quietly there, almost in the background of my noisy, rushed daily life and all too often I just forget about them altogether, let alone engaging in conversation with them.
However, the location and activities of this workshop made me consider plants in new ways. In the Forest of Dean, away from the distractions of my daily routines, I experienced plants as physical, living beings and as potential interlocutor. I was struck by the sensuality and tenderness I felt when I stroked some trees’ beautifully tactile skin; suddenly it occurred to me that I was interacting with someone. I also found myself pondering the generosity of the forest that was surrounding me and letting me walk through, and the generosity of individual trees where I spotted plenty of tiny creatures whose life the trees support in many different ways.
I had worked with wood before, but had never had the opportunity to start working from a section of a newly felled tree. [part of the workshop involved carving spoons from green cherry tree logs]. Seeing and manipulating the section in its near integrity, still impregnated with its vital fluids, made me reflect on the fact that the building material we find pre-cut in DIY stores and so often take for granted comes from living beings. Carving was also a new experience for me and gave me a sense of how the structures that support life in the tree dictated how the shape we wanted should be carved out of it. I discovered the pleasure (and pain) of trying to go along with the layers of these structures in my carving, hoping that those structures would legitimise the shape of my spoon and the shape of my spoon would celebrate the wood’s structure. I think that was close to having a conversation with a tree, but I was also aware that the tree had to die in order for me to experience that.
However, the location and activities of this workshop made me consider plants in new ways. In the Forest of Dean, away from the distractions of my daily routines, I experienced plants as physical, living beings and as potential interlocutor. I was struck by the sensuality and tenderness I felt when I stroked some trees’ beautifully tactile skin; suddenly it occurred to me that I was interacting with someone. I also found myself pondering the generosity of the forest that was surrounding me and letting me walk through, and the generosity of individual trees where I spotted plenty of tiny creatures whose life the trees support in many different ways.
I had worked with wood before, but had never had the opportunity to start working from a section of a newly felled tree. [part of the workshop involved carving spoons from green cherry tree logs]. Seeing and manipulating the section in its near integrity, still impregnated with its vital fluids, made me reflect on the fact that the building material we find pre-cut in DIY stores and so often take for granted comes from living beings. Carving was also a new experience for me and gave me a sense of how the structures that support life in the tree dictated how the shape we wanted should be carved out of it. I discovered the pleasure (and pain) of trying to go along with the layers of these structures in my carving, hoping that those structures would legitimise the shape of my spoon and the shape of my spoon would celebrate the wood’s structure. I think that was close to having a conversation with a tree, but I was also aware that the tree had to die in order for me to experience that.
Decorating my clay ball with leaves from the forests’ floor felt like a more dialogic experience. This time I chose to use elements that were already dead so I only picked leaves that I found on the ground. Harvesting all sorts of small leaves to decorate my ball was a joyful experience, which inspired gratitude and wonder for the great variety of plant life that the forest supports. I liked my leafy ball and didn’t necessarily wish to leave it behind hanging from a tree with all the other balls. But such a gesture rightly reminded me that what comes from the forest belongs to the forest and that if we take from the forest materials to build our lives, we ought to give back by offering our labour and creativity to preserve and nurture, and express gratitude to, the forest that makes our lives possible.
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