nature versus grace

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? 

—Job 38: 4,7

THE MOVIE The Tree of Life opens, with this scripture from the Book of Job. It follows with many more existential questions calmly voiced-over the film's amazing sun-soaked cinematography. The characters of the family it focuses on are the voices asking these questions. The movie takes you on a journey through time and memory that is as intense as it is calm. 

THE MOTHER pronounces in the opening dialog: "There are two ways through life. The way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you will follow. Nature, we are told, is selfish and full of itself. Grace is love, and the giving of oneself to a higher calling or power." It's a broad-brushed statement of the constant struggle of patriarchy versus matriarchy—nature and grace—if you will. But the point of the movie is how we all eventually come to terms with nature and the harsh realities of life and death. Our inherent grace only stays intact in finding love throughout the journey.

THE QUIET MOMENTS of the movie are interspersed with open-ended questions about life and a particular death of a son and brother. Where were you? How did you let this happen? Was he bad? It isn't a film made from narrative, but rather thoughts and images . . . "more like an experience, than a movie," as Devin said, with whom I first saw the movie. It took us on a journey through the foundations of life itself. This journey pulls you up by your heartstrings. 

I FOUND myself quietly tearing up in moments I didn't expect. The movie tugs at your inner core and brings up emotions from deep inside. It forces you to relate to the characters because their story is told in a universal way, rather than completely delving into the ego of personalities. Its success is found in relating the vastness of our common connectedness to time and memory.

IT ESPECIALLY resonates with me since the movie's family is based in the American South—Texas in the 1950s. Since I'm also a boy from a small Southern town (in Alabama), there are many instances in the film that that moved me closely to my own memories. The movie jumps from a place in the 1950s, to modern day, back to the primordial beginnings of life on earth in a dreamlike way. I grew up in the '60s instead, but it resonated in an almost direct way, since small town life then had not quite caught up with the tumultuous sixties. Back then, we only had the evening news instead of a 24/7 barrage of information and mindless chatter on television. It was a much quieter existence with time to sit and think.

BECAUSE OF THIS, the movie is not one that most audiences will have the patience for within a blend of summer blockbusters in this age of extreme stimulation. But I am one who can enjoy something just for the visual aspect.  This movie is at-once, both visual and visceral—and I've seen it twice. The gentle revelations made are like quiet visual poetry. It only directly informs through universal thoughts and snippets of visual consciousness. It's not pretense, but a genuine and sincere impressionistic work of art.

HOW DO YOU make a tree for such a broad subject? Have you ever planted a tree to commemorate an event or a person and seen its growth years later? How do you decide what to do? Devin brought me these beautiful hand-painted white chocolate frogs from a recent visit he made to New York. His challenge was for me to do a rain forest tree with them somehow. The more I thought about it, and knowing the scale and other problems I might have with a more traditional tree incorporating the camouflage-like frogs, I decided to use a series of plates with leaves from six different trees as a simple background as an implied way to serve them since they are edible "ornaments." It's a sort of studied communion. And it could be construed as a representation of the vastness of a rainforest in the most simple terms.

IF ONE STUDIES the picture, the negative spaces between the plates form a sort of tree. I thought a certain simplicity was the most direct way to show the multiplicity of specimen leaves from trees found growing near each other, yet relay each tree's ability to remember to make its own unique leaves in the cycle of the seasons.

TREE FROGS | (Top and above) In using the hand painted chocolate frogs made by Knipschildt Chocolatier, a gift from Devin from Dean & Deluca in New York City, NY; I selected leaves from trees while out on a morning walk with his dog. The Sam&Squito by Xiahe Co. bone china plates are subtly-patterned with a curved mesh design (which is hard to discern here).

TREE OF LIFE | (Above) I was definitely inspired by the poetry of this beautiful movie, written and directed by Terrence Malick and starring Brad Bitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain. Here you see the posters made for the movie. The poster (Right) is simply more arresting.

THE WAY OF THE BROTHER | In the many reviews I've read about this movie, the following one by S. Brent Plate may be my favorite in making sense of the movie's complex themes. It also repeats a voice-over quote from the brother Jack from late in the movie that I think helps one understand there is no triumph of one over the other in the unresolved "versus" of nature and grace: “Father, Mother, always you wrestle inside me. Always you will.” Link to the review/essay here.

LEAFSNAP APP | (Left) Leafsnap is a free mobile application for your smart phone or iPad. It is the first in a series of electronic field guides being developed by researchers from Columbia University, the University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institution, using visual recognition software to help identify tree species from photographs of their leaves on a white background. The app still has some kinks to work out (for instance, it works best only if you "snap it" through the app, rather than uploading a photo you've already made to it, but the more people use it, the better it will become.

©2011 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

photography and styling by Darryl Moland

the secret life of leaves

Deciduous \De*cid"u*ous\
Falling off, or subject to fall or be shed, at a certain season,
or a certain stage or interval of growth, as leaves
(except of evergreens) . . . [1913 Webster]

THERE  IS  A   "reason for the season" as they say. You can look at it a number of ways. The holiday season's visual focal point is the decorated evergreen tree, around which everything else revolves in most cases—even in households that don't celebrate Christmas per se. It is also a reverent celebration of birth and a hope for rebirth of man's spirit. In any case, I prefer to meld the disparate (or are they?) belief systems into one. All are symbolic of new life and rebirth in a profound way—and pay homage to their roots, no matter how popular custom has been morphed to fit one belief system or another. Its obvious to me that the resonance of the first beliefs and rituals involving decorating a tree of any sort is at the core of our central belief in nature and who we are as part of the natural world.

THE  INCREASING  prevalence of all sorts of leaf ornaments has been unmistakable in the past few years. It's no doubt because of the focus on the environment with concerns of global warming (or climate change, as it inexplicably became termed). Broadly, it is reconciliation between man and nature—an atonement for an unbridled growth (due to greed) of man's command over nature. The human race is realizing the awesome power of forces beyond our control and being put in our place—as a working part of the natural world, not the controller of it. Global crisis involves more than the obvious weather shifts and such. We have to educate ourselves with how our food is produced. Meat farming and food crops have already been seized by large corporations and industrialized and genetically modified, producing disease and making farmers into indentured servants. A lot of farmers are forced to not even save their seeds! They have to buy the new line of genetically modified ones for next season or face bankruptcy. And the very essence of life—water is being traded as a commodity as I write. To quote a line from a well-remembered 70's TV commercial, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature." The product it advertised was doing just that. I'll side with Mother Nature and have real butter from grass-fed and hormone-free cow's milk, thank you very much.

DECORATING  an evergreen tree with deciduous leaves (or representatives of such), is a meld of the processes of life and death (which is deciduous) with the hope of everlasting life (which is evergreen). When ideas come together like that, we come to the realization that everything is connected in nature and that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

I  WISH  LIFE, in general, could be more like that. We all get caught up with the end result instead of recognizing that the journey is the most important part. In my view, being open to a myriad of ideas and taking the time to absorb and learn from them are what makes life exciting—no matter how scary or messy it might get. And that's definitely something to think about—something that carries your spirit back home—to being a humble and reverent part of something bigger than yourself—Mother Earth.

LEAF COLLECTION | (Above, clockwise from bottom left): A golden maple leaf with a tiny jingle bell attached from the Martha Stewart Everyday/Golden Traditions line at Kmart, a mercury glass maple leaf, a bronze leaf with a tiny acorn attached from the Martha Stewart/Golden Traditions line at Kmart, a glass ivy leaf, and a large silver leaf from Pottery Barn—all atop a 100% recycled fiber paper/soy ink book-bound journal from greenroom eco / clementine paper, inc. at Target.

©2009 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
collecting, photography and styling by Darryl Moland

 

the evergreen (tree)

AFTER ABUSING THEM last winter (ivy winters well in Atlanta, if you keep it watered), I've miraculously saved both of my ivy topiaries. One of them (photo at right) is looking pretty good right now. What were once very lush topiaries several years back, are now much more sparse. I like the sparseness—it's not so predictable—now that the ivy is older and has woody stems. The interlaced stems are beautiful by themselves. I must admit though, my other topiary is formed by mostly stems, but the hardy nature of English ivy has kept a bit of green interspersed. Ivy, like life does have a perniciously tenacious quality, huh? You must keep it watered and nourished and it will grow and fill out around the structure you've provided.

ACCORDING TO THE Topiary Organisation, the topiary is one of the most ancient of garden crafts. According to what I've learned over the years, living evergreen decoration has long been an element in winter solstice (and later, Christmas decorations). Pagan tradition holds the belief that winter evergreens are a promise for another spring—symbolizing life's continuity. Evergreen decorations became ritualized at temples and even inside the home in winter celebrations because of the promise of new life. This symbology became Christianized (even though the early Christian church banned the use of evergreens because of its pagan associations). We all know now that the evergreen has developed into the holiday (or Christmas) tree and is an everlasting symbol of hope and merriment for most of the world. Whatever your belief, there is definitely an underlying reason for the hold it has on our imaginations.

IVY HAS LONG BEEN a symbol of love and fidelity, but the reverence to nature is important to me in any case. It's indisputable that the evergreen tree is resonant with many of the world's people. My evergreen topiary trees are symbols in a satisfyingly austere way, and I'm happy I can keep them alive!

"When you create within a sacred paradigm, you find a strange thing.

You are communicating with, and being fed by, sources you know are within you,
but have a much greater reflection somewhere else.

You are in touch with something timeless.” —playwright Elizabeth Fuller

©2009 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
photography and styling by Darryl Moland

TENACIOUS TOPIARY | One of the survivors outside my door (above).

PEACE SYMBOL | The dove topiary 
at Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston (left).