Is It Just Me?

Or do you see faces too?

Very jolly - this is the first one that caught my eye!

I'm seeing hearts again :)

 Is this one whistling?

Lady of the woods?

Computer geek!

A Last Look

You know I've been saving this one :)

Above is a Baobab Tree. Known as the Tree of Life, they are native to Madagascar, Africa and Australia, and have been carbon-dated up to 6,000 years old. This one in Zambia has been installed with a long drop toilet, but they can grow so large that one in Limpopo province, south Africa has been hollowed out (the tree itself measures 154 feet in circumference) and turned into the world's first pub in a tree, The Big Baobab Bar.

Is it just me, or do they look a little young to be in a bar!

With January turning to February, our month-long look at the tree and some of the art it's inspired has come to an end. In actuality, I will more than likely continue to post quite regularly on the tree and nature in general - it's been a continuing theme here all along.

Did you know today is Escape Day? A favourite quick escape of mine is to listen to a podcast of Coast to Coast while taking a hot bath. I find conspiracy theories, alien abductions and bigfoot sightings very relaxing, lol! What's one of yours?

  

Naughty by Nature and we have our Winners!

We have our giveaway winners!

JJ Hubby did the honours...

Congratulations to Sarah and Dianne!!

Email me your shipping info ladies and soon you will be privy to the deep secrets held within 

The Catkins Diet. This manual was originally intended for cat's eyes only. (As a result of 

the Persian Catwa that was issued against him for translating this book, author Michael

Domas has been forced into hiding somewhere in upstate New York.)

Guard it with all of your nine lives! 

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Everybody has an opinion on Nature. But what about Nature's opinion?

EOS magazine decided to give Nature the means to talk. 

A 100 year old tree, living on the edge of Brussels, was hooked up to a fine dust meter, ozone meter, light meter, weatherstation and webcam.

Visit me at my website Talking Tree

I'm also on Facebook!

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And since it's Friday, I thought I'd end off the week with freak trees;

this time it's Mother Nature herself who's the artist...

Have a great weekend!

Bark Weaving

"Approaching a tree we approach a sacred being who can teach us about love and about endless giving. She is one of millions of beings who provide our air, our homes, our fuel, our books. Working with the spirit of the tree can bring us renewed energy, powerful inspiration, deep communion."

- Druid Tree Lore and the Ogham

The weaving of bark produces beautiful and useful items.

Banana bark weaving in Rwanda

Botswana weaver, Mosadiwatshipi Modimbura

Roots, reeds and tree bark all combine into a piece 

which can take upwards to one year to complete.

 A combination of cedar and cherry barks.

 Haida Nation

Cedar weaving in coastal British Columbia

Skip ahead to 1:18 to see an incredible cedar bark cape, bustier and hat

modelled by weaver Victoria Moody! 

A reminder that if you haven't yet entered that winning line in January's caption contest... the end of the month is rapidly approaching. As well, I very recently updated all my pages, check them out when you have a chance :)

Birch Bark Biting

As the poet said, 'Only God can make a tree,' 

probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.

~ Woody Allen ~

Artists use the bark of trees in innumerable ways; the next few posts will feature some of these creative uses.

Birch Bark Biting is one of the oldest aboriginal art forms. It originated with the Woodland Ojibwa and Cree Nations, but today is only practiced by a handful of artists in Canada. Native art in all it's myriad forms fascinates me to no end.

Here Pat Bruderer (Half Moon Woman) demonstrates and discusses the

history behind birch bark biting. Love her jewellery :)

Pooktre

No look at tree art would be complete without profiling the practice of Pooktre. The hobby of training/shaping living trees and other woody plants into living art has been around for centuries and is known as Pooktre (aka arborsculpture.) It continues today by skilled arborists and enthusiastic green thumbs around the globe.

Here's a great link to the history, a world tour of the art  

and a how-to to growing your own living chair and fence.

Pooktre Tree Shapers

Living fiscus trees... amazing!

The following (also pics #2 & 3) were shaped by Axel Erlandson, one of the most famous Pooktre artists of the 20th century. At one point, in the late 1940's, he had over 55 shaped trees on his grounds in an attraction he called "Tree Circus" The above link is a great look at his life and contribution to the art form.

At Home in the Forest

My obsession fondness for all things Hobbit knows no bounds!

This adorable home in Wales fits in quite nicely with January's tree art/appreciation theme.

You can follow the above link for the history/philosophy behind it's design.

'Precious' is the word which springs to mind... hehe!

And now a pleasant meander through the woods... 

(You may or may not have noticed that Mondays With Mireille and The Arts of Beauty are 

sadly no more... I don't blog well on a 'schedule' and while I appreciate those bloggers who 

can keep to a regular feature, I've found out it's simply not for me. If interested, all previous 

instalments of these can be found under Links at the bottom of the main page.)

These wooden toadstools are amazing!

Woodworks and The Wolf Moon

Pyrography by Lauren Gray

The oaks and the pines, and their brethren of the wood, have seen so many suns rise and set, so many seasons come and go, and so many generations pass into silence, that we may well wonder what "the story of the trees" would be to us if they had tongues to tell it, or we ears fine enough to understand. ~Author Unknown

Continuing January's look at art forms which centre around the tree, I am profiling three artists and their respective mediums: marquetry, woodworking and woodburning.

Alison Elizabeth Taylor is an American artist known for her renaissance-style marquetry and woodwork depicting contemporary subject matter. Her work has been featured at a number of notable galleries and covered in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Village Voice.

I think these pieces are exciting, surprisingly modern and fresh! Certainly not what springs to mind when one thinks 'woodworking' and 'veneer.'

The piece above and next two are examples of marquetry by the artist Allashka. Strangely, I was unable to find any further information about this artist, except for various images in Google Images and a credit for the above piece in Wiki under Marquetry. Marquetry, (also spelled as marqueterie) is the art and craft of applying pieces of veneer to a structure to form decorative patterns, designs or pictures. 

The next number of images showcase the art of Pyrography. Pyrography or woodburning is nearly a lost art states David Kreider, "...yet from my earliest encounters with it as a child I found it seductive. In the warm organic beauty of wood I find a deep spiritual connection with nature, an intriguing aesthetic that now adds mystery and meaning to my art."

Pyrogravure colorée on fir
(a mix of oil and pyrography)
I love how the wood grain is such an integral part of this piece.

Pyrography on poplar

Most of us had woodburning kits as children, but I don't believe we (or our parents, for that matter) could have envisioned such amazing works were possible.

The poor wolf, he sure gets a bad rap!

A reminder to all you sky-watchers, that tomorrow Jan. 9, 2:30 am EST is the Full Wolf Moon. So named by Natives because wolf packs howled hungrily outside their villages during January's deep cold and snows. Thankfully, we are experiencing a very mild winter...! It's also known as the Old Moon or Moon after Yule :)