Among the Beech Roots.

Over the past month I have been completing a large scale drawing project started in Autumn 2020 from studies made in the landscape of the line of beech trees bordering Byway 745 and the litter collected from beneath them. The drawing measures 150 x 700 cm and had to be worked on in sections on the floor. Making assessments and decisions is problematic when you cannot get a view from a distance. The best option was to roll it out and stand on a chair, photograph it and then make notes on the photographs.

• 

• 

Excitingly, I had the opportunity this week to hang the finished drawing on a large wall in the Foyer Gallery of UCA at Farnham, where I was finally able to document and assess the work. It was a three person job to get it onto the wall, with a system of acetate tabs and small nails. The wall was free for the day, so it was really important to take as many photographs as possible, as I have no idea when another opportunity to display this drawing properly will occur. I’m hoping to include it in some way in the final major project of my MA, as it is very much part of my research in the Byway 745 Observatory. Space will be one the deciding factors. Once able to stand back from it, I was glad to see that I’d been correct to resist using large amounts of mid-tone, thus preserving the horizontality of the deep overhang and making it the first thing the viewer reads, before the details of the litter amongst the roots. On another occasion I would hang it higher on the wall so as to emphasise the sensation of being in the sunken lane below the trees.

Whilst making this drawing I have been drawn to reading around the subject of trees and their root systems as well as working on a video about the seasonal changes to the canopy of these particular trees. Jacqueline Memory Paterson, in her 1996 book Tree Wisdom, outlines the beech tree in botanical, historical and cultural terms. Its wood was used for charcoal before being superseded by willow and some of the first books, as opposed to scrolls, were made on thin slithers of beech wood. Beeches possess healing properties, especially for mental health – meditation in beech woods being said to be particularly effective. She touches on the symbiotic relationship between fungus and trees which is now a recognised phenomenon thanks to the work of Canadian ecologist Suzanne Simard whose hypothesis is that trees can communicate their needs and send each other nutrients via a network of fungi buried in the soil. A system known as a mycorrhizal network. This has got me thinking about developing further work about this layer of the Observatory that connects it to the wider woods around it.