Your sketches draw me in. Nourishment without necessarily knowing the underlying mechanisms, yet the deep satisfaction remains. Time will pass, more stories will be told, and secrets will become shared moments and better understandings. Amongst the mourning will also be positive intention. What is beyond us will still branch out. I hope we will feel it all, even from afar.
I'm in love with your photographs, and particularly two of them. The one with intertwining branches creating an intricate beautiful pattern filling up the whole sky, and the other one, a watercolor of yours, like the very skin of a tree, with its very delicate lines, veins and hues. Pure joy!
That’s wonderful to hear Felicia. I’m curious—I think I know which photo you mean but am less sure of the sketch. If you feel inclined, let me have a number based on their order from No.1.
I am imagining your roaming's amongst the ancient Scots Pines almost as a hymn, an alchemy to their grace. There are just two on my hill, two weeks ago an important branch was ripped from the higher of the two leaving the north facing others unprotected and naked; I understand your hurry, I understand when you say 'I am hoping I don't lose my place' and yet more so when I read "I thought I was drawing trees but really I’m drawing bodies."
Beautiful everything Michela, I can really feel your understanding of time in this essay.
Thank you Susie. I feel your pain. The more I visit them, the more I see their injury and decay. They must have been majestic in their prime. The trees around hid their scars but I notice too the yawning gap between seedling and parent. I tell myself that it is all a cycle; some days it works. They inspire both wonder and melancholy!
I do hope you’re right about the cycle, I search every year for seedlings and young trees, in twenty years I haven’t found even a single one and when I take a cone to pieces I am not surprised to find all are sterile, there are no seeds which is so very worrying when they are monoecious. On a brighter note, the small pine forest (pinus pinaster) pop up everywhere!
Love the fluidity and texture in your imprints/sketches. We have a Scots Pine (I think) in the corner of our garden and I’ve grown a seedling on to re-plant elsewhere.
Thanks Debbie. I’m always pleased to hear fluidity as so much changed for me when I began photographing water; it really shifted the way I see. I hope your trees grow well.
I feel the urgency through your words Michela, the desire and need to capture the beauty and wisdom of the pines. Your sketches speak of your time with the trees, honouring them, just gorgeous.
This is utterly sublime, and I delight in the words you have woven Melanie, thank you so much. Each line unfolds new treasures. I need to read, and reread, and will resist choosing favourite children (though lichenously licentious will undoubtedly accompany me on many walks here).
Thank you, Michela. A poem is the only adequate response to the beauty you have woven here in your words, photos, and artworks. They were singing to my heart and I needed to sing back to them. The image of your pages hanging on the trees will be hanging in my imagination for a long time-- they are so delightfully Sibylline.
I am so grateful to you for the gift of the poem you have given to me. It is such an honor to receive beauty and to be able to sing back to it and it's incredibly humbling when the words come through me to match what someone else is singing. Making music with other artists is one of life's greatest pleasures.
I am honored that you are re-reading and that my words will accompany you on your walks. And though I don't like to pick favorite children either, "lichenously licentious" was one of the most delightful surprises when it came to me.
I started following your substack because I'm also obsessed with mosses and lichens and your "Letters from the Moss" subtitle was irresistible.
Moss as entree… so good to know. There will at some point have to be a lichenous letter too, as the air hear is clear and they grow wonderfully, an underskirt on even young birch. A conversation is one thing; the idea of singing back and forth, of notes reverberating quite another. I’m glad that our paths have crossed Melanie.
Michela, Michela! Words fail me here, but please know I have experienced something wonderful in this sharing of your process, of your practice here. As Erica has said, sublime. Thank you!
Your sketches draw me in. Nourishment without necessarily knowing the underlying mechanisms, yet the deep satisfaction remains. Time will pass, more stories will be told, and secrets will become shared moments and better understandings. Amongst the mourning will also be positive intention. What is beyond us will still branch out. I hope we will feel it all, even from afar.
Thank you for such an exquisitely poetic response Martin, and for the hope shared.
I'm in love with your photographs, and particularly two of them. The one with intertwining branches creating an intricate beautiful pattern filling up the whole sky, and the other one, a watercolor of yours, like the very skin of a tree, with its very delicate lines, veins and hues. Pure joy!
That’s wonderful to hear Felicia. I’m curious—I think I know which photo you mean but am less sure of the sketch. If you feel inclined, let me have a number based on their order from No.1.
Sure! Photo n°8 and sketch n°12 :-)
Thank you!
I am imagining your roaming's amongst the ancient Scots Pines almost as a hymn, an alchemy to their grace. There are just two on my hill, two weeks ago an important branch was ripped from the higher of the two leaving the north facing others unprotected and naked; I understand your hurry, I understand when you say 'I am hoping I don't lose my place' and yet more so when I read "I thought I was drawing trees but really I’m drawing bodies."
Beautiful everything Michela, I can really feel your understanding of time in this essay.
Thank you Susie. I feel your pain. The more I visit them, the more I see their injury and decay. They must have been majestic in their prime. The trees around hid their scars but I notice too the yawning gap between seedling and parent. I tell myself that it is all a cycle; some days it works. They inspire both wonder and melancholy!
I do hope you’re right about the cycle, I search every year for seedlings and young trees, in twenty years I haven’t found even a single one and when I take a cone to pieces I am not surprised to find all are sterile, there are no seeds which is so very worrying when they are monoecious. On a brighter note, the small pine forest (pinus pinaster) pop up everywhere!
Love the fluidity and texture in your imprints/sketches. We have a Scots Pine (I think) in the corner of our garden and I’ve grown a seedling on to re-plant elsewhere.
Thanks Debbie. I’m always pleased to hear fluidity as so much changed for me when I began photographing water; it really shifted the way I see. I hope your trees grow well.
I feel the urgency through your words Michela, the desire and need to capture the beauty and wisdom of the pines. Your sketches speak of your time with the trees, honouring them, just gorgeous.
Thanks Sarah, you would love them. Do read this poem by Melanie Bettinelli (I’m thrilled). https://open.substack.com/pub/melaniebettinelli/p/scots-pine-diptych
Scots Pine Diptych
I.
Overhead sinuous branches
sinusoidal vaulting ribs
bows and bends of boughs
_
serpentine s-curves
slip sleepily
synchronous
_
undulate under
and over, across
and behind.
_
synods of pine trees
strideslip together, dancing
mingle catenary arms and
parabolic glances
_
touch and twist
together, curve
apart, waving
and weaving.
-
II.
Barkskin landscapes—
graphite ghost gardens,
intimacies of roughness—
_
lichenously licentious
mossily messy—
bodies bodied forth
_
from fog and frost
dews and damps and
breaths of breeze.
_
How could softness of air,
fiery sunlight shifting
through shadows,
and fineness of dirtmould leaf-rot
_
breedbuild such raggedshagged
coarsebark bristlings of fissures
crevice-crannies, fracturecleft?
_
O skin not flesh,
grannywrinked with wisdom,
whisper now your oracles.
This is utterly sublime, and I delight in the words you have woven Melanie, thank you so much. Each line unfolds new treasures. I need to read, and reread, and will resist choosing favourite children (though lichenously licentious will undoubtedly accompany me on many walks here).
Thank you, Michela. A poem is the only adequate response to the beauty you have woven here in your words, photos, and artworks. They were singing to my heart and I needed to sing back to them. The image of your pages hanging on the trees will be hanging in my imagination for a long time-- they are so delightfully Sibylline.
I am so grateful to you for the gift of the poem you have given to me. It is such an honor to receive beauty and to be able to sing back to it and it's incredibly humbling when the words come through me to match what someone else is singing. Making music with other artists is one of life's greatest pleasures.
I am honored that you are re-reading and that my words will accompany you on your walks. And though I don't like to pick favorite children either, "lichenously licentious" was one of the most delightful surprises when it came to me.
I started following your substack because I'm also obsessed with mosses and lichens and your "Letters from the Moss" subtitle was irresistible.
Moss as entree… so good to know. There will at some point have to be a lichenous letter too, as the air hear is clear and they grow wonderfully, an underskirt on even young birch. A conversation is one thing; the idea of singing back and forth, of notes reverberating quite another. I’m glad that our paths have crossed Melanie.
Really enjoy your posts. I’m inspired to take my sketchbook out with me - thanks.
Thank you Edi. I hope you do; the hardest part is getting started.
Michela, Michela! Words fail me here, but please know I have experienced something wonderful in this sharing of your process, of your practice here. As Erica has said, sublime. Thank you!
Your words are so sublime to read - just so visceral and alive. I loved this (and your art too, of course). ♡
Thank you so much, that makes me very happy.
A lovely post and beautiful images 💚
Glad you enjoyed it, thanks Damian.
Lovely tree portraits
Thanks KewtieBird.
Beautiful work Michela with one of my favourite trees - their bark is so beautifully craggy, holding miniature landscapes within.
Thanks Lin. That’s a wonderful way of describing it.
These are wonderful!
Thanks Amy, and hello!
Some gorgeous art, here: the ‘nudes’ and the one with the smirch of copper stand out for me. Thank you!
Thanks very much BT. Those are my favourites too, I hope there will be more.
I love the drawings/paintings!!
Thanks Manuela. I really enjoyed making them.
So beautiful paintings and photos.
Thank you Davor. It definitely feels like unfinished business.