In 2020 I began a practice of collaborating with Nature. I have always enjoyed durational and process-based investigations that take the long view, so to speak. I’ve gathered several branches of investigations you can read about under the different titles above.
Many of these practices are about visiting certain natural areas within walking or biking distance of my house to observe and participate with nature in the making of art. This almost-daily outing served several functions: during the early pandemic lockdown “checking on my projects” gave me a reason to leave the house and a way to do it safely away from others.
Writing love letters to nature and sharing poems and ideas with distant “Artners” (as I call my collaborators) by leaving tableaux and papers outdoors made me feel less lonely. I knew the intended recipient would not be able to read the actual arrangement I created on-site, but the function of correspondence is always partly magical, isn’t it? How does email work? How do letters leave one mailbox and arrive around the world intact?
Long after lockdown, the practice endures. I make marks on a piece of paper, tuck the paper into a nook in a tree trunk and walk on with my day, knowing somehow this idea will arrive where it is needed. Perhaps a jogger will find it, or the wind will bring it to a child, or a crow will read it. Perhaps my Artner will sense an arrival in their mind and respond. Sometimes I receive a ping on my phone from the very person I was thinking of during the creationing, just as I head home. Sometimes, as I send a photo of what I left, the recipient sends me a photo of something they made “towards” me. Sometimes I write these notes to myself.
Slowing down, walking and rewalking paths day after day is its own practice of opening to poetry. The more I notice as I circle through the temperate rainforest on the unceded Musqueam land at the mouth of the Fraser River to the Salish Sea the more grateful I am for every intersection I have with nature. This mode of deep attention has affected my reading practice, my interest in art, and my belief in the power of deep, small-scale connection.