In celebration of Earth Day and the one year anniversary of this blog, I’ve created a limited edition, concertina book to celebrate trees.
It is dedicated to those trees whose lives are hanging in the balance due to over-development of the landscape, and to all nature lovers who are taking a stand to protect these fragile, but strong wonders we call trees.
Tree Songs is a collection of my nature journal watercolor sketches accompanied by literary quotations from notable naturalists and authors celebrating the beauty and wonder of trees. It’s constructed from 140# Watercolor Paper for the cover with 24 premium recycled, text weight pages; all of which have been printed on a 7-color Epson Stylus Photo 2200 printer. The layout was designed in PhotoShop. (what an education that was!)
I wanted to create a piece of art to remind folks how fragile the beauty and the low country environment is. Trees are disappearing daily. Lost and gone forever. Everything in the environment is so connected. That fact seems to get lost with the flurry to make money through development. When researching possible quotes for this book, I came upon a dandy “Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money”. ~Cree Indian Proverb . While I chose quotes to celebrate the love of trees for this book, the Cree Indian Proverb hangs with me. We have smart people among us. Wise souls that see the errors of mankind’s waste. My prayer is that all peoples will realize it’s up to us to care for our Earth from acorn to zebra and all in between.
Right now, my artist proof of TreeSongs is on display at the bookmakers festival at the ARTworks gallery in Beaufort. I will be there Saturday from 10 – 5 with many other authors and artisans to celebrate our love for books and the written word. Please click on the link in the right sidebar for more information.
I’d hoped to have the first book, in the limited edition of 15, completed and photographed in time for this post but not…….. these visuals will be added next week. I will be donating 15% of the net proceeds from sales to the Audubon Society.
Please take time today to look at what’s around you. Please make an effort to go “green”
I thank you!
Thanks for stopping by, Ken. Yes, lots to celebrate – especially when we have the gift of art to share and hopefully help others to see what’s around 🙂
Hi Pam,
Congratulations on your blog anniversary! It sounds like you’ve been very busy.
The Cree quote is certainly appropriate. As I just mentioned briefly on my own blog I, and my wife, are very troubled by the wanton destruction of trees in our own neighborhood. It’s almost always by developers. I don’t want to go on in this negative vein on a day for celebration (both Earth Day and your blog anniversary). But the negative is hard to ignore.
As Debby Kaspari said when interviewed for the Nature Blog Network all of us nature bloggers probably do have some small good effect. So that is something to be thankful for and celebrate as well.