Art by NW: Todd Horton's drawing devices reveal the dreams of trees

https://crosscut.com/culture/2024/08/art-nw-todd-hortons-drawing-devices-reveal-dreams-trees

Art by NW: Todd Horton’s drawing devices reveal the dreams of trees

(Video at link)

Brangien Davis delves into the Skagit Valley artist’s inventive techniques for using wind, water and woods to capture nature on canvas.

by Brangien Davis / August 12, 2024

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This was about four years ago, at the beginning of the pandemic, when people were trying all manner of new endeavors. Horton had a wild idea of his own. “I kept thinking about it and pushing it,” he says, “which eventually led to the trees themselves making the marks and telling a story.”

Driven by the poetic idea of visually transcribing the dreams of trees, Horton constructed “drawing devices” out of simple materials: clotheslines, carabiners and wooden clamps that gripped black chunks of graphite or white lumber crayons.

He set out into the forests of Bow and Edison and strung the devices up in the trees above blank canvases. The trees’ movements made captivating markings — with an assist by wind, rain, snow and the drying effects of sun.

“It was exciting,” Horton recalls of these early forays. “Each day I would hike up into the forests and see what happened. It was always unexpected and fun.” He especially liked getting out of the studio and “dealing with the environment directly.”

… more …

(Cheesy narration. Cool idea.)