Bringing Van Gogh home: the value of art books

Recently I wrote an article on the American artist Edward Hopper and his vision of solitude and alienation. Though I used the internet to hyperlink pictures of his paintings to those discussed in my essay, I also went to my local library, where — this was a bit of a miracle — I found three volumes of his work.

As I flipped through those books on Hopper, taking pleasure in the paintings, in the comparisons of his techniques with those of other artists, and in the extensive commentaries of the editors, memories of exploring other art books drifted through my mind. Ten years ago or so, I had enjoyed strolling through these collections of paintings, feasting the eye on works by artists as radically diverse as Caravaggio and Mary Cassatt.

Those Hopper books reminded me that somewhere along the road my penchant for perusing art paper and print had vanished. At almost the same time, I came to see the educational value of these books. It was Norman Rockwell rather than Hopper who taught me this lesson.

My wife loved Rockwell’s work, and as a consequence we owned two weighty books of his paintings. As our children grew into early adolescence, we shared these books with them, explaining the pictures, but mostly allowing the kids to absorb his works with limited guidance from us. Occasionally, in this same way I’ve brought his paintings to the attention of my grandchildren.

On a visit to my daughter in midOctober, I brought along a Rockwell book from the public library. My five-year-old grandson, the youngest member in this branch of the family, looked at the cover and then at a couple of paintings, and said, “I saw this Rockwell before with you, Grandpa.”

That’s the day I discovered the power of such books, their ability to bequeath to our young people beauty through painting. Just as importantly, I found that the the subject matter of art also allows us to acquaint kids with the myths, history and stories that are the foundation of our culture.

For the younger crew, Rockwell offers a fine starting place in this endeavor. In “Norman Rockwell: A Sixty Year Perspective,” with text by Thomas Buechner, we find the wonderful painting “The Bonds of Enchantment,” where two boys lying faceto-face are reading books while above them float ethereal figures from nursery rhymes and pirate stories. Rockwell’s “The Problem We All Live With,” in which a little black girl in a white dress walks to school between federal marshals past a wall smeared with thrown tomatoes, gave me a chance to talk about racism and the Jim Crow policies of our nation 70 years ago.

For interested teenagers, books like Sister Wendy Beckett’s “The Story of Painting,” which I also own, is an excellent comprehensive guide not only to Western art, but to its history as well. Here we find written explorations of the past, the stories of saints and Biblical figures employed by painters over the centuries, and the ongoing commentary by a nun who over her lifetime became a serious student of art. The Civil War paintings of Mort Künstler might heighten a high schooler’s interest in that bloody struggle between North and South. And if these same students, or for that matter, any of the rest of us, want more information on a particular artist, Francesco Goya

for example, or James Whistler, they can easily search out paintings and biographical particulars online. Such art can also inspire the stories we tell the little ones at bedtime. Many parents read to their children, almost always from illustrated books, and the stories we find in paintings may prove to be the perfect springboard for entertainment as well. Diego Velazquez’s “Las Meninas” (the maids of honor) with its crowded room may raise questions and speculation: Jeff Minick Writer Who are these young women? Who is the man in black standing in the doorway? Why might a nun be there? (For the very young, we might explain what a nun is.) Even a painting so lacking in action and so tranquil as Fragonard’s “A Young Girl Reading” might give rise to discussion and the chance for a parent to invent a story for the girl and her book. For the rest of us, contemplating the paintings of artists like Rembrandt, Renoir, or Rosa Bonheur deepens the soul and the meaning of the world around us. The mother who has lost a child surely looks at Michelangelo’s “Pieta” with different eyes than most other viewers of that statue. Renoir’s “The Boating Party Lunch” may remind an old man of the keg parties of his youth, when the promises of the future looked as bright and sure as the faces of those in this painting. At any rate, winter is already tapping at the door, and browsing books of art can be wonderfully fortifying when frost silvers the lawn and a North wind is rattling the branches on the trees. Open up one of those colorful volumes, pour yourself a glass of wine or a cup of hot chocolate, invite a companion or two — a friend, a lover, a child — to share this moment, and comfort and a quiet joy are almost guaranteed. (Jeff Minick reviews books and has written four of his own: two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust On Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning As I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” minick0301@gmail.com)

Sylva monthly book club

your friendly, local blue box — smoky mountain news

I’M NOT JUST HERE TO PUT IN THE HOURS. I’M HERE TO PUT IN THE YEARS.

Look beyond the resume and you’ll Smoky Mountain News

After the harvest ceremony, Ruby makes her way down N.C. 215, ultimately destined for Washington, D.C.

James Edward Mills/Choose Outdoors photos

Merry Christmas, from Haywood

Tree to serve as Capitol Christmas tree, prompt spruce restoration efforts

BY HOLLY KAYS OUTDOORS EDITOR

Sometime around 1940, a red spruce seedling pushed above the forest floor in southern Haywood County. Its roots drank from the moist soil, and each year the tree grew taller and stronger.

The nearby logging road was eventually paved, widened, and christened N.C. 215. Increasing numbers of cars climbed it each year, especially after the ridgetop road just uphill, the Blue Ridge Parkway, was completed. As the decades ticked by, the number of cars roaring through the tree’s neighborhood reached into the millions. Eventually, their drivers could see the treetop from the road, towering over the rest of the trees in the forest.

Last week, the tree — named Ruby — began its own journey along the road over which it has long stood sentry. In a ceremony Wednesday, Nov. 2, it was cut down and loaded into a trailer destined for Washington, D.C., where Ruby will soon decorate the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol Building as this year’s Capitol Christmas Tree.

“Over this past year, we combed the mountainsides of the Pisgah and the Nantahala National Forest looking for just the right tree, and we think Ruby is just that,” Lorie Stroup, U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree Coordinator, said during the harvest ceremony. “Along with that we conducted over 100 conservation education outreach events across the state, and our work will continue for years to come with our red spruce restoration efforts.”

Each year, one of the country’s national forests supplies the towering tree that serves as a national symbol of celebration on the West Lawn. For the first time since 1998 — and the third time in history — that tree comes from the Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest.

It’s also the third time in history that a red spruce will adorn the West Lawn, and the first time a red spruce will come from the PisgahNantahala.

“The red spruce is an iconic tree species in Southern Appalachia,” Pisgah-Nantahala Forest Supervisor James Melonas said during the ceremony.

THEFUTUREOFREDSPRUCE

the tree harvest. While the 78-foot tree no longer towers above the canopy along N.C. 215, its cones have been gathered into a paper grocery bag that now resides at the Southern Highlands Reserve, a cultivator of native plants in Lake Toxaway that specializes in producing red spruce seedlings.

“It’s something that I never thought I would do in my career,” said Executive Director Kelly Holdbrooks. “It’s kind of a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I’m honored to be part of it.”

Holdbrooks and her staff became accidental experts on propagating red spruce, a notoriously difficult tree to produce. Young red spruce trees are more sensitive to environmental stressors than mature trees, but the Southern Highlands Reserve developed methods to effectively grow and transplant these trees that result in a 90% success rate — something that’s “really unheard of in reforestation efforts,” said Southern Highlands Reserve’s communications director Holly Renehan.

Initially, the Reserve was just growing seedlings for use in their own gardens, but a chance meeting with a wildlife biologist resulted in a partnership with The Nature Conservancy to produce more trees for restoration projects. Increasing the viability and size of these spruce-fir islands in the sky, as well as restoring their connectivity to one another, means a better chance of survival for the forests and all species that inhabit them.

In 2015, that partnership expanded to include various state, federal, nonprofit and university organizations and was named the Southern Appalachian Spruce Restoration Initiative. Now, Southern Highlands Reserve is now working to fulfill the Forest Service’s request for 50,000 red spruce trees. So far they’ve grown about 10,000, with 6,000 planted on public land in North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia thus far.

That’s a lot of trees, and they’ve produced them all using a pair of 20-year-old hoop houses.

But a higher-tech future is on the horizon. With Ruby’s harvest, the Forest Service announced $250,000 in funding toward a new greenhouse to be managed by Southern Highlands Reserve. The 1,800-square-foot facility will nearly triple the Reserve’s current nursery space and incorporate technology to help staff better care for the young trees.

“If we’re able to produce 2,000 seedlings a year with those (old hoop houses), the sky’s the limit with what we’re F

Track the tree

For more information about the Capitol Christmas Tree, including scheduled stops and a tree tracking feature, visit uscapitolchristmastree.com. Video of the harvest ceremony is available at facebook.com/uscapitolchristmastree.

The tree was harvested by Rodney Smith, a 30-year employee of the Uwharrie National Forest with support from Dover Crane and Bartlett Tree Experts.

Coche Tiger tells the Cherokee legend of the evergreen trees as EBCI Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources Joey Owle looks on.

A wildfire that started near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s western edge following a motorcycle crash Sunday, Nov. 6, had been 90% contained at 40 acres as of Monday evening, Nov. 7.

The motorcyclist lost control while riding U.S. 129 near Chilhowee Lake, colliding into the roadside, after which the bike was engulfed in flames, starting the wildfire. The biker was able to safely exit the accident site before the fire erupted.

About 60 wildland firefighters assisted in fire suppression Nov. 7, with 24-hour rainfall between a quarter and half an inch aiding their efforts. Crews established a hand-dug firebreak line along the perimeter to prevent growth in the park’s backcountry. Wildland firefighting operations included a hotshot crew, hand crews and a Type 2 helicopter operation from the U.S. Forest Service, along with a hand crew and Type 6 engine crew from the National Park Service Appalachian Piedmont Coastal Fire Management Zone module.

The forest abutting U.S. 129 is blackened following a wildfire

started Nov. 6. NPS photo

going to be able to do with state-of-the- art technology,” Holdbrooks said.

The overall project will cost about $1 million, with the Forest Service committing $50,000 and the National Forest Foundation raising $200,000 more. Holdbrooks expects to break ground in 2024, with supply chain issues likely to be the main obstacle to getting started. Manufacturing the greenhouse pieces will take six to eight months.

It’s a long-term project, but so is growing trees. The shortage of spruce-fir forest in today’s Southern Appalachians is the result of forces acting for decades before Ruby first sprouted as a seedling. First there was the frenzy of logging in the late 1800s and early 1900s, accompanied by construction of railroads through the rugged terrain. There were hot-burning wildfires, then torrential rains that swept away the charred soil, eliminating any seeds that may have been stored there. The balsam wooly adelgid killed off swaths of balsam trees, and mid-century air pollution damaged the already fragile environment.

“I am happy to report that the red spruce is the least in decline of the conifers, so it’s our best hope, and that’s why we’re planting red spruce back on the land,” Holdbrooks said.

‘FORFUTUREGENERATIONS’

Ruby is on tour now, making stops throughout North Carolina and Virginia as she heads toward her scheduled Nov. 18 delivery to the West Lawn in D.C. on a specially decaled Kenworth T680.

Accompanying her to D.C. will be 80 smaller trees from Christmas tree farms across the state, many of which will be delivered to military families at the Andrews Air Force Base. The Forest Service doubled its goal of 6,000 donated, handmade ornaments to decorate the trees. After Christmas is over, Ruby’s wood will be used to make musical instruments.

When it’s time to light the tree for the Christmas season, fourth grader Coche Tiger, a student at New Kituwah Academy in Cherokee, will do the honors. He was chosen through an application process that included a question about the environment and his Cherokee culture.

Though he’s only 9, Tiger is well aware of the ancient stories his people tell about how the trees that cover our mountains came to be. During the Nov. 2 ceremony, he told the Cherokee legend of the evergreen tree. In the story, when they were created all the trees and animals were asked to stay awake for seven nights, fasting and praying, but as each night passed, a few more fall asleep. By the seventh night, only a few remained awake. The animals that persevered to the end were given the power to see and go about in the dark. The trees — spruce, pine, cedar, holly hemlock and laurel — were given the ability to keep their leaves all year and to give provide medicine to the Cherokee people.

“Therefore, these trees are sacred and used for medicine by the Cherokee people,” Tiger said.

Towering to 78 feet, Ruby had about 12 inches of height for each year of life. Story, history, and the passing of time are all bound up in the presence of a large, old tree like her. But to plant a spruce seed is to believe in the future.

“When you plant forests and when you plant trees, you’re planting those for generations behind you,” said Holdbrooks. “I think that’s the message I want people to understand. When you’re doing this kind of work, you’re doing it for future generations.”