Skye Dreamer
Between Boundaries - Full
Wind brings new challenges to the creation of nature art as many materials are light enough to blow away with the shifting currents. This weekend, spent camping with a few dozen others, next to a beautiful Earthship in sourthern Alberta, brought with it a few of the windiest days I can recall. Perched at the top of a creek-carved valley, the winds wound their way up the slopes nearly the entire weekend.
This piece made use of the incredible colours of lichen on these exposed rocks. I gathered the scattered and half buried stones that shone the brightest, and placed them in a line along the sharp edge of this hill, curving them into the shape of a winding snake. With the predictable wind direction, I was able to use the stones to create a barrier and successfully add lighter plant-material. The down-wind side is lined with sage and a few dried plants and grasses were used along the spine to accentuate the snake's appearance. A larger rock was used for the head that has a well spotted lichen patch resembling an eye.
An exploration of the boundaries between worlds, the green and the brown, the ground and the sky, the snake is a cross-cultural icon of a bridger of worlds, the light and the dark.
Rock, grass, and sage design
Kinney Earthship, AB
August 2016
Between Boundaries - Full
Wind brings new challenges to the creation of nature art as many materials are light enough to blow away with the shifting currents. This weekend, spent camping with a few dozen others, next to a beautiful Earthship in sourthern Alberta, brought with it a few of the windiest days I can recall. Perched at the top of a creek-carved valley, the winds wound their way up the slopes nearly the entire weekend.
This piece made use of the incredible colours of lichen on these exposed rocks. I gathered the scattered and half buried stones that shone the brightest, and placed them in a line along the sharp edge of this hill, curving them into the shape of a winding snake. With the predictable wind direction, I was able to use the stones to create a barrier and successfully add lighter plant-material. The down-wind side is lined with sage and a few dried plants and grasses were used along the spine to accentuate the snake's appearance. A larger rock was used for the head that has a well spotted lichen patch resembling an eye.
An exploration of the boundaries between worlds, the green and the brown, the ground and the sky, the snake is a cross-cultural icon of a bridger of worlds, the light and the dark.
Rock, grass, and sage design
Kinney Earthship, AB
August 2016