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| ©Catherine Nash, "Plant Memoire", mixed media on handmade grey cotton rag paper. 36x36 in. |
As one gets older, it is tempting to document one’s life by writing a memoire for family and posterity. Personally, I am uninterested in writing it all down, but the thought did occur to me to create visual and written “memoires” of my experiences in nature…for myself… to muse over in my elder years. Plants have always drawn me to them: indeed, I have had a life long adoration of plants. So I started by compiling and writing a plant “resumé”. Certain moments with specific plants stood out from the rest to me, and I was compelled to draw them. These nine drawings are the result. I feel kinship with plants, from root to branch tip...their stretch into earth and sky. An intuitive relationship between myself and the natural world has always evoked the desire to create within me: the life of root and bud are at the heart of our being.
Upper left
CYCLAMEN (Cyclamen purpurascens)
I moved from Paris to Vienna in 1982, and it was particularly difficult - a very unhappy time for me. Even though I was a guest student at a university there, I spoke very little German, knew no one, and was quite lonely. But I stayed on to fulfill my goal of studying the works of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. Often I would hike into the hills outside the city, crunching through snow. Poking through the ice crystals were green leaves with a very distinctive patterning. With a start, I realized that they were cyclamen, a plant I’d nurtured while working in a greenhouse in my teens. The green was rejuvenating and heartening - a life line - those little leaves offered me strength and resilience.
Upper middle
KOZO or Paper Mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera)
Tramping through the woods in Kasama, Japan, Richard and Asao taught us to identify the Kozo tree from the unique shape of its leaves. Little did I realize how vital this plant would be to me. Used to make paper in Japan for over 2000 years, the inner bark of Broussonetia papyrifera is cooked, hand pounded, and formed into the most beautiful and refined handmade sheets of paper. This plant was to become my intense passion, offering me not only the key to lecturing and teaching all around the world, but a versatile spark of wonderful inspiration for much of my art as well.
Upper right
SAGUARO (Carnegiea gigantea)
I’ve greeted the very same saguaros each time I hike, and as I drive to work teaching at the Desert Museum…for all of the 40 plus years that I’ve lived in Tucson. Acknowledging my favorite saguaros as I hiked up Tumamoc Hill or into King’s Canyon, I would carefully touch them between their pleats while listening to the wind whistle through the spines. During my first summer in Tucson, I took a workshop in the Tucson Mountains with Tohono Oo’dham elders (offered by the Desert Museum) to learn how to use long saguaro ribs to harvest the ripe fruit. And just last year, my friend Terrol invited me to join his family at their annual camp to gather and cook saguaro fruit with them. (It was the last spring before he died…) I honor the majestic saguaro that stand as quiet witnesses to my life.
Middle left
GOLDENSEAL (Hydrastis canadensis)
Out on the land of our 18 acre homestead in the Missouri Ozarks, huge patches of endangered goldenseal grew in the dappled sunlight of the hardwood forest that surrounded us. Rob fostered an intimate relationship with these medicinal plants. He protected them. He whispered to them. And they thrived. We’d bushwhack into the woods with small shovels and a bucket and harvest just enough of the rhizome roots for medicinal use to last the coming year. A beautiful plant with light yellow-green leaves, goldenseal seems to glow in the shadows on the forest floor. They bloom in the spring with a single white flower that evolves into a bright, red (inedible) fruit. The root, pungent and bitter, has healed us both over many decades. Even now, when I’m about to drink its tea or to eat a root, I call to our Missouri goldenseal patch for healing…
Center
DANDELION (Taraxacum officinale)
How old was I? Sitting in the grass inside the white picketed fence of our courtyard in Connecticut, I would press my face to the ground, smelling earth and green; watching tiny insect life and dreaming. Dandelions grew among the grass. I would watch, mesmerized, as the delicate seeds were carried aloft in the wind, propelled by my breath: the dreamlike reveries of childhood.
Middle right
REDWOOD TREE - Coastal (Sequoia sempervirens)
My memories of redwoods are completely tied to my two 3-week artist residencies in Morris Graves’ studio at The Lake in Loleta, California. There was a ring of redwood trees planted near the studio. I’d lie in the very center looking up to the sky and listen to the wind through the branches. Deep within the almost 400 acres of virgin redwood forest on his property, in every kind of weather from fog to rain to sunshine, I’d hike around the 5 acre lake from the house and up a hill to find my favorite redwood. Sequestered in a deep hollow at the base of this amazing tree, I’d be protected from the weather. I could hear the muffled sound of the Pacific which was only 4 or 5 miles away as the crow flies. In there, feeling safe and sheltered, I’d dream, meditate, and sing.
Lower left
MAIDENHAIR FERN (Adiantum capillus-veneris)
Ever since my first job in a greenhouse at age 14, maidenhair ferns have always been a favorite. I think I’ve almost always had one as a houseplant. I had hiked down from the north rim of the Grand Canyon on the N. Kaibab trail, crossed the Colorado River, and was just starting up the Bright Angel trail near the bottom when a tiny trickle of water beckoned me…I followed the water up into a natural grotto of rock. When I poked my head into the “cave” opening, in the cool, dark shadow of the hidden spring was a maidenhair fern, ethereal and delicate, trembling from a slight breeze. I’d been called to it. Years later while grocery shopping, I “heard” a distinct but silent message, “Take me with you!”. I walked right over to the only maidenhair fern in the plant section and replied, “Okay!” Only 2 days later, the plant completely died back. I kept whispering to it. After several days, many delicate shoots appeared from the root ball. Resilient for such a delicate plant, it still thrives in my kitchen.
Lower MIDDLE
NORTHERN RED OAK (Adiantum capillus-veneris)
This particular tree is one I grew up with in Connecticut and later in New Hampshire. I’ve climbed many an oak tree. More recently, I’ve been nurturing my passion for the writers of the 1850s who lived in Concord, Massachusetts and the environs. I’ve taken numerous pilgrimages to Concord, but one trip still stands out from the rest. I was meditating on the shore of Walden Pond near where Henry David Thoreau had built his homestead. I opened my eyes to scattered acorns amongst the crisp, rust colored leaf strewn forest floor. Gathering a few for souvenirs, I thought, “If not now, when?”, and then swam to the center of Walden Pond to float and ponder!
Lower right
BAMBOO (Phyllostachys edulis)
Keith and I were bushwhacking through the hills north of Kyoto when we came upon a remote Buddhist monastery. A “competitive” sect to the Jōdo-shū tradition in which Keith had become a monk, they kindly invited us in and offered us something to eat. As we knelt at a low table on tatami mats, we were served bamboo shoots and rice. Just picked that morning, the tender shoots (called takenoko) were delicious! On this particularly magical day, we pushed through a bamboo forest as we made our way back down the mountain. High above us, the wind blew through the bamboo trees - I’ll never forget the orchestra of melodic knocking sounds as the hollow culms (stalks) struck each other. Months later, living back in Kasama again with Asao at his 18th c. thatched roof farmhouse, I watched a bamboo shoot grow more than 30” in one day!
