Burl

I have no background in botany and most of what I know about trees comes from heating with wood for many years when I lived in New Hampshire. So I can’t explain why burls form, other than that I think it has to do with an initial injury. This tree has burls on top of burls, very complicated!

As I’ve been working to figure out how I want to portray trees, what I want to say in these images, I try not to take “snapshots” of them. I want there to be something visual beyond just how a thing looks.

With that in mind, I’m ambivalent about this image. At one level, it seems like a simple shot of a complex burl (or burls) on a tree. But what made it interesting to me is that it embodies a process of healing that was long and complex. In addition, the mix of textures and lines is deeply interesting to me regardless of the object portrayed.

That said, I’m still not sure. It seems a bit too literal for me. But I’m not clear on this. So I’ll do my usual trick of forgetting the shot and coming back in a few weeks and seeing how I feel about it at that time. In the meantime, let me know what you think!