Off trail hikes
Looking for mountain tea
A few days ago I made two attempts to hike up to a little creek on the mountain. The mountain faces south, and in the summer the bare granite bluffs bake in the sun and radiate heat in the evening. It looks scale-able, with most of the ravines and cliffs not so hidden by the dense vegetation on mountains closer to the coast, but I headed up the wrong creek bed on my first hike.
I’ve been marvelling at the microcosm-macrocosm situation found on this mountain: the tiny lichen and moss communities clinging to rocks, mirrored by the gnarled fir trees and ironwood shrubs growing between boulders. Clambering up and through this landscape I’m always stopping to gaze at lichens and trying to avoid stepping on them, while also stumbling through rock fields and over fallen trees.
On my second hike I found the little creek, which was more of a large, overhanging cliffside dripping water from little fissures throughout the rock face. The dry-looking stone of the mountain is actually full of hidden water, seeping down through a network of crevices and surfacing here and there. A few times I stopped to listen to water rushing under the soil, and take the dogs to drink at an unexpected trickle in an otherwise dry ravine.
A variety of mosses and algae were soaking like wet sponges in the gravity-fed water on the cliffside, and downhill from this spring I found water-loving cottonwood and alder trees growing out of the underground creek bed as it made its way to the valley floor.
We drink this mountain water from our taps, via downhill waterlines or drawn from wells in the valley soil. Seeing it trickle in small amounts from stone and screened through mats of plant and fungi, I imagine it to be more of a cold, slowly filtered gravity tea.
A few links…
the wooden space satellite cottages of architect Andrew Geller, via Friday Cabins
for the local book club I’ve joined, I’ve chosen the 1992 novel The Secret History by Donna Tartt, and am enjoying the podcast Weird Studies’ analysis of the book. I am loving this so-called “dark academia” novel but curious to see what the book club thinks :)
I would love to see the paintings of Jarid del Deo in person!
I’ve sent out the first batch of art print postcards to Art Space subscribers (the paid subscriber portion of Studio Notebook!) If you are a paid subscriber and want a postcard, please do reply to this email with your mailing address! Sending snail mail is so fun <3
For March’s Art Space activity, I’ll be going over the process of working from very small (magnified lichens) to big (20x26 inch paper).
See you then, and thanks so much for reading Studio Notebook!
<3 Anne.
I love Jarid’s work! I know him and he lives in my town. Such a great human and incredible artist. Such a small world! Can’t wait for the postcard and this month’s art space activity.