Pine Forest

Snowy forest at Broadmoor Audubon Sanctuary
Valentine's Day 2013

The Hunnewell Pinetum

Early this morning (March 21, 2012), if you'd been walking around Lake Waban in Wellesley, you would have run into me sketching this marvelously pruned pine tree in the Hunnewell Pinetum. The sun had just topped the slope (to the left in my drawing) and I was down on the shadowed lake shore path. Occasionally walkers and joggers would come along. Dogs would lope along too, their collars jangling. But mostly what I heard were the birds: robins, mockingbirds, sparrows and mallards out on the water. In the distance, on the far Northwest end of the lake, a pair of swans were making a ruckus. A breeze picked up and I rolled my sleeves down and noticed the high clouds of fog retreating. Such a beautiful morning!

If you look carefully, you'll notice a bird at the very tip-top of the pine tree. What a fine observatory: "Port out, Starboard Home!" eeeeeeeeeeee!

I've included a few other drawings of the garden and a photomontage taken one rainy day last year. I wasn't dressed for the weather and  it was miserable. So I decided at the least to trespass a little :-( and take some quick photos of the Pinetum from places the public is not allowed to go.

Here's a link to a short history of the Hunnewell Pinetum (pdf file). There's also a Wikipedia entry.

If you're curious about it and want to sketch there sometime, let me know; I'd love to show it to you!

Pine Tree at the Hunnewell Pinetum, Wellesley, Massachusetts
colored pencil
© 2012 Rob Dunlavey

when? A cold day is all I remember!

drawn from Tupelo Point on the Wellesley College campus
07-16-2011

also from Tupelo Point (using a gold colored pencil)
11-25-2011

Why Make Pictures?

For what it's worth, I've been reading and greatly enjoying "Kenzan and His Tradition" by Bernard Leach. Published in 1966, this book describes the artistic traditions that informed the practice of Ogata Kenzan who developed a uniquely Japanese approach to ceramic decoration in the late 1600 - early 1700's. The influence and importance of Kenzan's "Tradition" is similar to the breakthroughs in European art by the better-known masters of the Italian renaissance. Leach's argument is that, while being in a completely different form of art, Kenzan's accomplishment of fusing an artistic response to cultural, social, political and religious realities was just as groundbreaking and that it continues to influence how we think and feel. His art changed the world. It accomplished this by the force of Kenzan's integrity and his focus on tradition and his unique sensitivity to the cultural winds that were stirring in his lifetime. In 2004, the Miho Museum near Kyoto held an exhibition of Kenzan's work, life and times.

And Leach's writing has a completeness and clarity that beautifully describes a very different historical culture. This alone is a good reason to read "Kenzan and His Tradition". It has slowed me down and allowed me to witness the lives of real people unfolding through time. The best parts are the connections he weaves between individuals with many different aims and agendas. Some are theoretical (because this is a work of scholarship) and others are well documented. But what does any of this have to do with my landscape drawings of 21st century suburban Boston?

I include my drawing of some small pine tree trunks with this description of Leach's book because it coincides with my reading and that, if you can be sympathetic enough, it shows the influence Japanese art, or Asian as I barely understand it, has had on my practice at the moment. While being a timeless type of nature study, for me this drawing is a poetic reflection on an exact moment of my existence. I stood in the cold with frozen fingers and produced a drawing of what I looked at. The trees captured a part of my imagination that is too tangled to describe. It was  a meditative moment with a specific task that needed to be accomplished. At different times, several people walked by, walking their dogs. We exchanged greetings. The dogs sniffed my offered hand. I drew until it became uncomfortable and went home.

Why do this? Why do this now? If you must know, it brings me peace and a momentary focus on something that is not imaginary. My thought process whirs along and I observe it while trying to create a reasonable facsimile of what I am looking at. This is what happens when one is making a picture. The drawing hardly matters. After a while it simply becomes a testimony to my having sat with something and regarded it closely and with affection. I think this is a good reason to make Art.

The Minpin Tree

a beech tree
12 May 2011
china marker

I could probably do many drawings of this subject. It's interesting enough and it's a peaceful spot to spend some time in. Imagine a huge tree that goes up and up. Branches go this way and that out from the main trunk. It's airy and open. Perfect for climbing if my legs were longer or my arms were stronger or if I was a Minpin.

Do you know what a minpin is? You should! They are tiny tree-dwelling people in "The Minpins" a short story by Roald Dahl. The version I'm most familiar with has been illustrated by Patrick Benson and was published in 1991.

If you read this book (or just look at the pictures) you will know what a minpin is and why this tree is a "minpin tree". For some reason, I have this tendency to imagine myself as very small when I an drawing in nature. Specifically, when I'm drawing intimate things like trees, roots, ferns and herbs.
Here are two more images from "The Minpins". The illustrations are by one of my favorite illustrators, Patrick Benson.

The birds are happy to take the minpins anywhere they need to go.

The main character, a small boy, escapes the forest on the back of a swan.

Gathering Nuts

"Red Squirrel, Lake Waban" colored pencil

Red Squirrel, le lac Waban" crayon de couleur

Fall is definitely here. And we are harvesting different things:

Some sort of flying circus

Une sorte de Flying Circus

Fearless Fox

Le renard intrépide

Birds in flying machines

Les oiseaux dans des machines volantes

We're having a good time over here. I hope you are too.