On cedar: artist notes from the field
Returning after a week in scholarship at the beautiful IISAAK Learning Lodge in Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks, I am reflecting on how so many of us are living and breathing Truth + Reconciliation every day, not just on the so-called “stat holiday.” It’s really important to come together in allyship, in medicining through memories - so that we do not forget and perpetuate the harms - and, in celebration too.
Notes from the field
When preparing for this field course, as I do with any trip on-the-land, I began reading published maps and native plant books to familiarize myself with the living beings that I might meet. I reflected on many of the past harms brought upon now-extinct species, all in the name of ‘Western Science.’ Harmful practices such as harvesting (and eliminating) the last-known whales, mammals, birds, eggs, and plant life are permitted for scientific documentation. I was especially curious about the ethno-botanist’s practice of leaf rubbing for professional illustration. I imagined that I might document my reflections and learning impressions in a non-invasive way, reversing some of the past harms done in the name of Western Science and without eliminating plant life.
At the same time, students were invited to bring a small object from home, something tangible which communicates who you are and where you’re from. Cedar has been a constant in my life and I was inspired by the cedar tree in my backyard. I asked this tree for permission to harvest a single leaf on which I practiced the leaf rubbing technique. As I made my plan to take rubbings of plants I encountered during the course, I prepared my artist tools (tracing paper, graphite, and wax crayons). Whether coincidentally or sub-consciously because of this pre-meditation, cedar is featured in every one of the rubbings.
On each day of the course, I set an intention to notice what teachings were coming to the surface and what visual(s) were calling me to take rubbings. During the field course, we encountered living cedar, nurse log stumps, and cedar which had been transformed by skilled craftsmen into totem poles, canoes and our eagle feather represented by a cedar ‘talking stick’. I selected four illustrations to revise further using the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators technique of tracing and producing a final rubbing with graphite on watercolour paper After making my choice of four impressions, I noticed a common thread: each visual represents cedar transformed by humans.
Respect: The Land
The rubbing of this cedar stump was taken at Tla-o-qui-aht Master Carver Joe Martin’s studio in the forest. Each millimetre line represents a year of growth on a tree stump which was 15 metres in diameter. I was challenged by the cedar’s concept of time, for which commands great respect and discipline to grow, despite so many adversaries. In many contemporary planning practices, a few decades are considered a long planning timeline. Whereas 500 years may be a single generation of cedar tree and is more akin to the long time horizon used in planning for Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks.