Bug Cinema is a new ecological forest art commission for the Whale Oil to Whole Foods summer eco-arts festival in Greene County, upper New York State. Bug Cinema will be revealed to the forest as a portable glow-lab UV solar light sculpture: a trans-disciplinary hybrid of art/entomology: poetry/science in synthesis. Taking the entomologist’s traditional light trap, field work apparatus to another level, Bug Cinema will function as an integrated, collaborative inter-species social-sculpture and biodiversity research project.
‘My thoughts run in a different channel…if revealed, they would be little understood or appreciated…But am I better or wiser for this sense and perception of the beautiful, which I imagine myself to possess in a greater degree than the many?’ – Thomas Cole (private journal, 1836/7) Thomas Cole was the visionary founder of the Hudson River School of Painting, which (in the early 19th century) was the birth place of American Romanticism. Cole was born, 1801 in Northern England near the town of Bolton in Lancashire. His family worked in the textiles industry until they emigrated to the United States in 1818 to find a new life and fortune. In the spring of that year the Cole family set sail from Liverpool to a new land…the rest, as they say, is history. Thomas Cole pioneered and nurtured a poetic, aesthetic sensibility of landscape and the natural environment which has inspired successive generations of artists. Some might say that Cole’s cultural significance and art historical stature (at the peak of his career) was matched only by his British contemporaries such as J.M.W. Turner and John Constable. As I encounter the dramatic, lush beauty of the Hudson Valley, I somehow feel in-tune with Mr. Cole’s spirit. I can’t help but wonder how his soul was stirred on his first view of the Catskill Mountains… ‘Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.’ – Rachel Carson (1907 – 1964) In 1956, Eric Rasmussen a forester educated in New York State, married into the Lange family and embarked on a career as the owner of Lange’s Grove Side Resort. For the next 50 years, Eric pursued his avocation of forestry through the sustainable management of 150 acres of land owned by the resort. Eric named this property the Siuslaw Tree Farm as a tribute to the Siuslaw National Forest in Oregon, where he worked as a forester after graduating from college. Siuslaw is a Native American word meaning ‘land of the far away river’, referring to the Columbia River in Oregon. In naming the property Siuslaw, Eric was referring to the Hudson River. In 2006, Eric and his family generously donated the Siuslaw Tree Farm to Cornell Cooperative Extension of Greene County (CCE Greene) so that the forest would continue to me managed and provided research and educational opportunities in the future. Earlier this week I met with Eric and he expressed curiosity in the Bug Cinema concept. It was my privilege to talk with this generous man of ‘vision’. I explained my humble endeavors and how I hoped that – from a scientific perspective, at least – the project might make a small contribution to the Centre’s ecological baseline data collection, by identifying moth species which presently live in the forest; something which, until now has not been conducted. ‘Sustaining the ecological, aesthetic and economic values of forested lands’ – Agroforestry Resource Centre In 2007, the Siuslaw Tree Farm was named one of three New York City Department of Environmental Protection’s Model Forests. The mission of the Model Forest Programme is to integrate scientific research, continuing education and public outreach to illustrate relationships between the environment and human activity, and to provide a public forum in which to improve the overall understanding of how ecological, social and economic processes shape forested watersheds. CCE Greene is gathering baseline data on the condition of the Siuslaw Model Forest. Over 200 study plots have been inventoried for woody and herbaceous plants, as well as soil type and pH. These study plots will be monitored over time as part of the forest’s Continuous Forest Inventory. CCE Greene is cooperating with Cornell University to study the growth of agroforestry crops, such as mushrooms and American ginseng. ‘If I were to name the three most precious resources of life, I should say books, friends, and nature; and the greatest of these, at least the most constant and always at hand, is nature.’ – John Burroughs (1837 – 1921) I’m staying in Platte Clove Cabin, the historic, rustic retreat that the American naturalist and writer, John Burroughs famously lived in during many of his adventures in this majestic, Catskill mountain wilderness. There is an old photo of John (with his iconic long, white beard and wide-brim hat) on the wall opposite my bed. I am his guest and I feel in good company knowing that there’s a part of his benevolent spirit here in this beautiful, idyllic place. Everything here is so green. The cabin is very quaint and the locality is thick forest, gorges and tumbling waterfalls. My nearest waterfall is only 5mins walk down the steep, craggy path from the cabin. As my abode is without mains water the Platte Clove Falls has become my personal, private bathroom. Each evening after I’ve had a wash and swim, I fill-up my 2 gallon bottles with mountain water and head back up the steep trail to my poet’s shelter. Men say they know many things; But lo! they have taken wings, – The arts and sciences, And a thousand appliances; The wind that blows Is all that any body knows. – Henry David Thoreau ‘Walden: or, Life in the Woods’ (1854)
