Highbrow Magazine - nature https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/nature en Before Fire, There Was Wood in Roland Ennos’s ‘Age of Wood’ https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/11296-fire-there-was-wood-roland-ennos-s-age-wood <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Tue, 02/23/2021 - 14:04</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1fire_fir0002-wikipedia.jpg?itok=irKtLdFf"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1fire_fir0002-wikipedia.jpg?itok=irKtLdFf" width="480" height="320" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material And the Construction of Civilization</strong></p> <p><strong>By Roland Ennos</strong></p> <p><strong>Scribner</strong></p> <p><strong>336 pages</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Here are some interesting facts about wood from Roland Ennos, a visiting professor of biological sciences at the University of Hull:</p> <p> </p> <ul> <li>Wood is lighter than water.</li> <li>Weight for weight, wood is comparable to steel in strength and toughness.</li> <li>Wood can be employed to hold up houses, “yet can be cut up into tools as small as a toothpick.”</li> </ul> <p> </p> <p>In his new, comprehensive book, <em>The Age of Wood, </em>Ennos attempts to disprove the prevailing conventional wisdom that wood “is little more than an obsolete relic from our distant past.” Towards that end, he ranges far and wide, calling upon findings from archeology, geography, geology, and biomechanics, as well as the long history of human culture.</p> <p> </p> <p>It’s an ambitious project, and one that largely succeeds in making the case for wood’s central place in the progress of civilization.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1wood_pxfuel.jpg" style="height:450px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Take, for example, the prehistoric use of wooden tools. Contrary to popular belief, it was <em>apes</em>, rather than early hominins (primates closely related to humans) that first used tools in the form of sticks for digging, spears for hunting, and nests for shelter. Hominins quickly caught on, as Roland notes:</p> <p> </p> <p>“… even the reconstructions of the lives of early hominins that have been made by devotees of stone make it obvious that they used mainly wooden tools—to hunt animals, to dig up plant roots, and to construct shelters—and that they burned wood to keep off predators, keep themselves warm, and cook their food.”</p> <p> </p> <p>From these early times, the author tracks corresponding advances in the use of wood with progress in society, both in peacetime and at war. Its use led to development of other key “building blocks” of civilization—cast iron, wrought iron, concrete, etc. Today, wood continues its usefulness in a variety of forms, such as laminated wood, plywood and wood pulp.</p> <p> </p> <p>At the same time, wood—in its “original” state as trees—has been adversely affected by global climate change and other environmental factors. This has led to wildfires of unprecedented fury and reach, including the <a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/11072-exploring-crime-fire-chloe-hooper-s-arsonist" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">megafires in Australia in 2009</a> that generated an inferno of hellish proportions, eventually covering more than 100 million acres.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3woodbook.jpg" style="height:600px; width:398px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>What comes across most vividly in this panoramic study of wood is Roland Ennos’s love of the subject. This grows out of a simple, but compelling idea:</p> <p> </p> <p>“It became clear to me that wood has actually played a central role in our history. It is the one material that has provided continuity in our long evolutionary and cultural story, from apes moving about the forest, through spear-throwing hunter-gatherers and ax-wielding farmers to roof-building carpenters and paper-reading scholars.”</p> <p> </p> <p>A last fact about wood: At present, it’s estimated that greater than 3 trillion trees still thrive around the world, and blanket roughly 30 percent of the planet. Although, as Professor Ennos would have us believe, there are plenty more facts where that came from.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><strong><em>Lee Polevoi, </em></strong><strong>Highbrow Magazine’s <em>chief book critic</em>, <em>is the author of </em>The Moon in Deep Winter, <em>a novel.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Image Sources:</strong></p> <p><em>--Fir0002 (</em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Large_bonfire.jpg" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Wikipedia</em></a><em>, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p><em>--</em><a href="https://www.pxfuel.com/en/free-photo-ikaqe" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Pxfuel</em></a><em> (Creative Commons)</em></p> <p><em>--Scribner</em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/roland-ennos" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">roland ennos</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/age-wood" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">age of wood</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/new-books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">new books</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/trees" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">trees</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/nature" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">nature</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/fire" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">fire</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/use-wood" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">use of wood</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scribner" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scribner</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lee Polevoi</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Tue, 23 Feb 2021 19:04:12 +0000 tara 10187 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/11296-fire-there-was-wood-roland-ennos-s-age-wood#comments Breathtaking Images Capture the Imagination in ‘Mysteries of the Unseen World” https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4325-breathtaking-images-capture-imagination-mysteries-unseen-world <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/film-tv" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Film &amp; TV</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Fri, 09/26/2014 - 14:54</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1ngfilm.jpg?itok=b_HlDQSX"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1ngfilm.jpg?itok=b_HlDQSX" width="480" height="263" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>Imagine being able to see light waves bouncing off objects, microscopic creatures in pond water, or watching a nano-machine destroy a cancer cell as if you could see your own hand. What could you study and learn from that observation?</p> <p>That’s the focus of ‘Mysteries of the Unseen World,’ a new documentary short by <em>National Geographic</em>. Narrated by Forest Whitaker and clocking in around 40 minutes, ‘Mysteries’ is like a refresher science class, covering just enough information to educate viewers and pique their interest.</p> <p>‘Mysteries’ breaks down into 4-5 segments: invisible light, too slow, too fast, too big, too small. The common factor is that the processes mentioned are not visible to the human eye. These segments are meant to bring awareness to the viewer, to show them what’s happening in the world with every passing moment. In a way, the documentary is toying with the adage ‘seeing is believing’—which is usually applied in the contexts of faith—by using it in the field of science.</p> <p>Some of the information is common knowledge to those who have completed high school: the human eye only sees the rainbow of waves known as visible light, water is held together by surface tension. But the documentary is also educational, providing information on some high-tech processes and some historical context on technologies used today.</p> <p>In the section titled ‘Invisible Light,’ for example, viewers get a glimpse of how infrared light waves work, illuminating the areas on bodies and surfaces the various levels of heat; gamma rays and X-rays allow us to see through objects. For ‘Too Fast,’ the audience gets the chance to see lightning as it shoots up when it strikes, or the wings of a dragonfly beating—thanks to the technology of high-speed cameras. Being able to capture moments on film that are too fast allows for better study.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2ngfilm.jpg" style="height:534px; width:625px" /> </p> <p> </p> <p>One of the best segments in ‘Mysteries’ is the ‘Too Slow’ piece. Arguably one of the most important (visual) parts of scientific documentaries today, time-lapse photography can be credited to John Nash Ott, who wanted to capture the growth of flowers. By projecting photos at the speed of a film (24 frames per second) viewers can see the growth, creation and decay of plants and organisms or the movements of the planet and humanity in one sitting.</p> <p>‘Mysteries’ asks the viewer to imagine seeing that which we cannot see, saying “it would forever change our understanding of the planet that we live on.” The idea behind this documentary is that knowledge and awareness of the unseen forces in the world would spur this drive to not only create technology that would improve our lives, but also to appreciate the workings of the world. ‘Mysteries’ succeeds at this, with its dramatic renderings of potential technological possibilities, as well as real-life scenarios and instances. It’s a great mini-documentary that praises human technological advancements and the natural world around us equally.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:<br /> <em>Gabriella Tutiino is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine.</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/national-geographic" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">National Geographic</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mysteries-unseen-world" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mysteries of the unseen world</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/national-geographic-films" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">national geographic films</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/nature" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">nature</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/earth-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the earth</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/planet-earth" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">planet Earth</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/animal-kingdom" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">animal kingdom</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Gabriella Tutino</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Fri, 26 Sep 2014 18:54:22 +0000 tara 5240 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4325-breathtaking-images-capture-imagination-mysteries-unseen-world#comments Environmental Victories of 2013 https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3416-environmental-victories <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 01/06/2014 - 10:18</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/2trees%20%28pavelahmed%20flickr%29.jpg?itok=HEnmO9lq"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/2trees%20%28pavelahmed%20flickr%29.jpg?itok=HEnmO9lq" width="480" height="322" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>From <a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/">Indian Country Today</a> and our content partner <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2014/01/ten-environmental-victories-and-triumphs-of-2013.php">New America Media</a>:</p> <p> </p> <p>With all the talk of rising temperatures, acidifying oceans and melting polar ice, it is hard to see the healthy trees for the forest, as it were. Yes, the emerald ash borer and the mountain pine beetle are making inroads, and extreme weather is becoming the norm. But it’s important, too, to note the environmental triumphs and victories that tribes either helped engineer or benefited from, or both.</p> <p> </p> <p>Native peoples reintroduced fading species, restored habitats and stopped big industry in its tracks.</p> <p> </p> <p>Several species began coming back, many of them thanks to the efforts of tribal programs. Northwest tribes were pleased to see a record return of Chinook salmon to the Columbia River. A healthy wolf population flourished in Yellowstone National Park, strengthening the wildlife web around it. Here are some of the more notable wins, and the tribes involved in making them happen.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>1. Pushing Back Against Mega-Loads</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>The Nez Perce had been trying to stop mega-loads from traversing a federally designated scenic highway through their territory for years. In 2013, a judge finally said, “Enough.” The football-field-sized pieces of equipment destined for the Alberta oil sands up in Canada are no longer permitted to trundle within 50 feet of the Nez Perce creation site. Although the battle has now moved to Oregon and the Umatilla Tribe, this was a big win for the Nez Perce and sacred places.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/1fish%20%28USFWS%20Pacific%20Flickr%29.jpg" style="height:334px; width:640px" /></p> <p><strong>2. The Return of the Salmon</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Build the habitat—or take out the obstacles—and they will come. Northwest tribes were exultant as more than a million Chinook salmon made their way back up the Columbia River to spawn, a record.</p> <p> </p> <p>Of course, there is still much work to be done—in fact, many habitat-restoration efforts seem to be compromised as fast as they can be put into place—but just the sight of so many fish returning was enough to keep hope alive.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>3. Black-Footed Ferret Rebounds</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Last August we noted the return of the black-footed ferret, thanks largely to the efforts of the tribes who hosted their reintroduction by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Lower Brule Sioux, Cheyenne River Sioux, and Rosebud Sioux, all in South Dakota, plus the Northern Cheyenne and Fort Belknap reservations in Montana and a deeded ranch in Arizona managed by the Navajo all hosted the nearly extinct animal when it was released into the wild. Last seen, they were starting to reproduce. Could thriving be far behind?</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>4. White Sturgeon Stages Comeback</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>The Kootenai Tribe of Idaho is keeping this endangered species, which has been around since the dinosaurs roamed, from going extinct by breeding them in a fishery.</p> <p> </p> <p>Hatchery workers spend days every month in spring catching these huge fish, taking them to the hatchery and holding them until the females are ready to spawn. They then collect the eggs and return the adult fish to the Kootenai River.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/1cougar%20%28forestwander.com%20Flickr%29.jpg" style="height:367px; width:550px" /></p> <p><strong>5. Air Spawning Keeps Steelhead Trout Alive</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Without impediments, this sea-going trout can spawn twice, spending the intervening time in the ocean. But slack water reservoirs and numerous dams have caused less than 2 percent of kelts to survive the return trip. Enter the Yakama, Warm Springs, Colville and Nez Perce tribes, which have launched innovative programs to take steelhead trout and store them during the time they would normally live in the ocean, then re-release them when it comes time to spawn. It’s a one-of-a-kind program to save this threatened species that only Indian tribes are engaged in. Although the notion of “recycling” a fish might seem outlandish, that is in essence what they are doing.</p> <p> </p> <p>Over in their corner, the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe celebrated the return of another ancient trout species, the lahontan cutthroat. This one was in fact thought to be extinct, <em>The New York Times</em> reported in April, until fish with the same DNA was found in a creek near Pyramid Lake in Nevada. The tribe got to work, and by summer, tribal members were finding 20-pounders.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>6. Cougars Swarm Turtle Island</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Be they known as pumas (Inca), cougars, mountain lions, catamounts or panthers, this feisty kitty has “re-colonized the Black Hills of South Dakota, the North Dakota Badlands and the Pine Ridge country of northwestern Nebraska,” <em>The New York Times</em> reported in June. More recently, <em>National Geographic</em> called it one of the more remarkable animal comebacks on record.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/1eagle%20%28PaulWaggener%20Flickr%29.jpg" style="height:428px; width:640px" /></p> <p><strong>7. Big Oil Admits Defeat in the Chukchi Sea</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>For now, at least, offshore drilling has been suspended in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska, after a series of mishaps showed three oil companies that they were woefully unprepared for emergency response, given the extreme weather.</p> <p> </p> <p>Royal Dutch Shell started the trend by nixing its 2013 Arctic offshore drilling plans altogether because of equipment problems, the company announced last February 27. About a week later, Norwegian conglomerate Statoil said it would hold off on drilling until at least 2014. Most recently, ConocoPhillips announced on April 10 that it was suspending its plans to drill exploratory wells off Alaska’s Arctic coast in 2014. Though Alaska Natives did not directly engineer this, it was a victory for them and other environmental stewards.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>8. Bison Gets Its Day</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>The bison finally got its day—the first Saturday in November, to be exact, when the first official National Bison Day was decreed.</p> <p> </p> <p>Earlier in the year, back in August, the first genetically pure bison in a century were released onto the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>9. Eagle Killing Doesn't Pay</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>In November, Duke Energy Renewables Inc. was not only fined millions but also pleaded guilty to criminal charges for killing eagles with its wind turbines. In doing so, Duke became the first wind-power company to ever be found criminally liable under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Although Duke’s earnings dwarf the fine, the plea and fine combo marked a milestone.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>10. Wolves Prove Their Worth</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>The resurgence of the wolf population in Yellowstone National Park has benefited everything around it, researchers ascertained last summer. The wolves eat the elk, which then do not eat the berries, which then leaves more food for grizzlies, wrote the team from the universities of Oregon and Washington State in the Journal of Animal Ecology.</p> <p> </p> <p><a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/">Indian Country Today</a></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/indians" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Indians</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/native-americans" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Native Americans</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/environment" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">environment</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/wolves" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">wolves</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/bald-eagles" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">bald eagles</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/salmon" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">salmon</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/saving-environment" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">saving the environment</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/going-green" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">going green</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/saving-trees" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">saving trees</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/oceans" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">oceans</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/trees" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">trees</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/nature" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">nature</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">ICT Staff</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">PavelAhmed (Flickr); USFWS (Flickr); Paul Waggener (Flickr); CindyLou Photos (Flickr)</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 06 Jan 2014 15:18:29 +0000 tara 4065 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3416-environmental-victories#comments Artist Brian Arditi Pays Homage to Nature, His Greatest Muse https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/1486-artist-brian-arditi-pays-homage-nature-his-greatest-muse <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/photography-art" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Photography &amp; Art</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Wed, 08/22/2012 - 17:49</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1mediumbrianarditipainting.jpg?itok=tZjIiVfm"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1mediumbrianarditipainting.jpg?itok=tZjIiVfm" width="480" height="319" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>  </p> <p> Millennia ago, visual art required more labor, not to mention an appetite for the meticulous. Cave-dwelling painters didn’t have the luxury of an art supply store. They resorted to nature’s offerings. These determined artists of prehistory found ways to preserve pigments and paint with them. In fact, it was the appearance of certain inimitable natural colors that inspired them to create in the first place. The invigorating search for pigments was once a crucial part of the painter’s process.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Brian Arditi, an artist from Yonkers, New York, still believes in this process and uses it to create striking artwork. Arditi wants to infuse the future of visual art with the power of its primitive past.</p> <p>  </p> <p> “I want to be as close as possible to what art started as, but with a modern twist,” he said when I visited his studio this month.</p> <p>  </p> <p> He pulls pigments from natural sources like flowers, rocks, dirt, soil, clay, crystals — anything earth-produced that has a distinct color. He dyes a thick lacquer with the pigment, and then uses the solution to paint. “I want my art to be simple and accessible. I want art for the masses because that’s where art began. It has since turned into pretense and facade. The earth was the original canvas.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> His website, FlowersAsPaint.com, offers an extensive portfolio of his work. Some pieces look like depictions of cellular and amoeba-like formations; others summon the colossal vastness of space; others are more earthbound, including a preserved branch or lacquered flower. Arditi creates dizzying designs that resemble close-ups of petri dishes (Plinko, Puddles, Luminescent) or what could be the skin of a starfish (The Speed of Light). His tight, intimate depictions of nature in the abstract have such depth and dimension that they appear to be in motion.</p> <p>  </p> <p> “All the artwork I make with organic pigments is alive,” Arditi said as he led me to a large room adjacent to the studio. “When I start off on a painting, I only have a general idea. I’m open for it to turn out totally differently than I ever imagined. I want to develop a type of art where I can say, ‘Hand, go,’ and the hand goes and when it’s done, it looks like a cloud. It’s like muscle memory for sports players. You have to do it enough. There’s a rhythm behind it.”</p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/3mediumbrianarditir.jpg" style="width: 632px; height: 950px; " /></p> <p> Several of Arditi’s paintings were plastic-wrapped and leaning against the wall in stacks. He showed me an early work that he quickly critiqued.</p> <p>  </p> <p> “This looks like a cartoon because it’s flat. I don’t use my shadows properly,” he said. “But I like the fact that it reminds me of a comic strip.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> Butler No. 2 is an acrylic that depicts a figure seated on the commode, reading a newspaper section labeled “MAKING MONEY.” To his left is the arm of a butler, extended through a window, a roll of toilet paper hanging from his fingers. Such a painting suggests the sensibility of a sly liberal satirist who uses caricatures to gently stab at the 1 percent. Arditi said he always wanted to create a series out of the butler paintings, “but I got distracted with the whole flowers thing.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> This is an example of the artist downplaying his own enthusiasm. When he speaks of his experience on one June morning in 2007, he sounds less like a man distracted than a man who’s been converted. He speaks like a proselyte overjoyed by a newfound euphoria for nature. As he walked through the park that morning, he happened to glance down and notice the blooms beneath his feet. “I’m trampling all of these beautiful little flowers,” he said. “They were about 3 or 4 inches tall, and the actual flower was about the size of a quarter. They’re buttercup-yellow and they’ve got a ton of petals on them — maybe 40 petals each.”</p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/4mediumbrianarditi.jpg" style="width: 700px; height: 1050px; " /></p> <p> This trampling prompted an imaginative epiphany. “Realizing that there are colors in nature that you can’t get out of a tube came from that moment,” a discovery that set into motion a nonstop series of experiments with pigment preservation.</p> <p>  </p> <p> “It started with me doing it like a grandmother would do it: drying them out in books and just waiting to see what happens. A few weeks later I go back to them and they were like mummies. Just flattened versions of their alive selves.” He began by applying the natural pigments directly, imbedding the flowers into a small canvas before the acrylic dried.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Arditi’s process evolved rapidly as he showed his work and gathered suggestions from his family, a major source of encouragement and guidance. During a showing at a store-room gallery in Bronxville, New York, two years ago, Arditi’s brother, an engineer, asked if it was possible to solidify the flowers without flattening them.</p> <p>  </p> <p> “I’m like a kid,” Arditi said. “If you give me a cool idea, I’ll go with it and explore it to the nth degree.” Then his father, also an engineer, suggested using a desiccant to preserve the flowers. So Arditi ground up silica gel (the mineral placed in small packets with merchandise to remove moisture) and began burying flowers. “It’s like sand,” he said. “It’s so fine that it leaves no room for moisture. If you leave it there for a certain amount of time, you end up with a dried and semi-rigid flower that looks the way it did when you put it in the container. That was like a breakthrough.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> His method requires a scientist’s perseverance, a microbiologist’s attention to detail, and an artistic determination to seek out solutions to newly presented problems. “Nine out of 10 people — maybe 10 out of 10 — will tell you flowers don’t make good pigment because the pigment isn’t concentrated enough. It disperses and fades quickly. So I had to figure out a way to reverse that problem, or at least drastically slow it down. That’s the inorganic part. The coating that I use is a preservative, a protectant, and a shape-keeper. What I’m doing is taking the flesh of the flower and giving it a skeleton so it can last.” The coating, or lacquer, is a solution that he says took three years of trial-and-error to perfect.</p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/5mediumbrianarditi.jpg" style="width: 700px; height: 883px; " /></p> <p> In his studio, he showed me a light-green rock. It’s the shade of asparagus and the size of a lumpy softball. “I found that in Montana on the way to Glacier National Park,” he said. “There were droves of these. Droves.” He also presented a magenta-colored rock from the same place. “It was like looking at a rainbow of rock. You talk about the earth having its own palate. It was right there for you.” Every color? “The only one I didn’t find was blue. Blue is probably the hardest natural pigment to come across.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> His studio is a well-packed rectangle of tables and tools. Arditi directed me to a walk-in closet filled with the air-tight plastic containers that hold the precious pigments and flowers entombed in silica. He’s collected red dirt from New Mexico and an ocher-tinted soil from Lake Tahoe that’s so dry it crumbles under the slightest pressure. He’s traveled some 17,000 miles in the past few years, collecting hard-to-find pigments. He flew home from his most recent trip with 150 pounds of rocks and soil.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Arditi was eager to use the green rock from Montana, so I was able to see how he takes the color from a rock. While a flower requires patience and delicacy (“There are a lot of times I have to operate with tweezers”), a rock seems more resistant to giving up its pigment. First, he cracks the rock into small chips and slivers. Then, the small fragments are ground into finer granules. The finely chopped little chunks are then sifted and, eventually, combined with the lacquer to make paint.</p> <p>  </p> <p> I watched as Arditi painted a depiction of the sky on the glass of a detached window. “In the thousands of pictures I came home with from these trips, there must be 2,000 pictures of just skies,” he said. “The way they move, the tremendousness of them, the different types of clouds. It just fascinates me. What do you see best through a window but the sky?” On the window glass, he’s painting the kind of multi-colored sunset sky you might see in Arizona. “I love the skies. I sound like a total pothead artist, right?</p> <p>  </p> <p> He chuckles at his own child-like amazement with nature, but there’s a certain intensity that Arditi wears on his sleeve. It’s a joyful, unapologetic intensity. Several times he spoke of the expansiveness of the sky, or the vastness of the universe, or the intricate design of the most microscopic organisms.</p> <p>  </p> <p> “The first time I saw the Milky Way I was in the Grand Canyon, and it blew my mind,” he said. “I watched shooting stars for two-and-a-half hours, one every 10 seconds. It was religious.” For Arditi, nature is the greatest muse.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> <em>Christopher Karr is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/brian-arditi" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Brian Arditi</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/flowers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">flowers</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/nature" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">nature</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/trees" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">trees</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/painting-flowers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">painting with flowers</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/artist" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">artist</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/art" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">art</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/new-york" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">new york</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Christopher Karr</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Wed, 22 Aug 2012 21:49:38 +0000 tara 1439 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/1486-artist-brian-arditi-pays-homage-nature-his-greatest-muse#comments