A group project with Rachel Steeves, Kaija Nivala, Anna Ploegman, and Spencer Hees.
(The Earth Works Project was a group project where we paired with one person from class, and 2-3 people from Creativity and Design class.)
Earthworks are engineering works created
through the moving or processing of parts of the earth's surface
involving quantities of soil or unformed rock. The earth may be moved to
another location and formed into a desired shape for a purpose. Wikipedia
For the Project we needed to come up with multiple ideas and contain it into one series.
I was particularly in charge of the Myth/Folk Tale that we needed to come up with, and taking photos/videos on our filed trip day. The photos and videos were referenced by the beginning of the Folk Tale. The idea of the Samurai being a tree and how it is human yet also a spirit especially influenced me.
Myth/Folk tale: The Tale of the Cedar Tree and His Wife
Long ago in ancient Japan, there lived a fine young servant girl who was hired by a family to babysit their child. This girl eventually befriends a kind samurai (a Japanese soldier). However, no one has even heard or seen this young samurai before. He always came at night to the girls house, and left soon before the sun rises for the morning. No matter how many times the girl asked him what his name was and where he came from, the samurai kept quiet. One night the girl decided to tie a small thread around a needle and stick it into the hem of the samurai’s cloths. After the sun rose she followed the string to see where it would lead her in hopes of figuring out where this samurai was. When she came to the end of the string she spots a giant cedar tree with a needle stuck in the bottom of it. She soon realized that the lovely samurai was the cedar tree all along. Even after finding out that, she was not afraid, for she knew he was a kind spirit. She married the tree spirit and was blessed with children.
Tragedy strikes short after, the giant tree is determined to be too large and is decided among the towns men to be cut down and made into a bridge. Many Lumberjacks were gathered and tried to cut the big cedar down. But no matter how far in they cut, the cedar is completely back to normal the next day. A wise man comes along and tells the townspeople to burn small chips off the cedar. The cedar eventually falls, but when they try to drag it back into town the cedar kept moving back to where it originally was. The townspeople did not know what to do, so they told the cedar’s wife to deal with it. Despite all the sadness she bared for her husband, she put her hand on the cedar and asked “Please will you go into the town,” and at that moment the people had no problem dragging the cedar back into town. The cedar was broken down by the people and made into a bridge. However, night after night the cedar spirit haunted the bridge, and people were too afraid to cross. The wife was called in again and to calm her husband’s spirit she recited a poem, “hems burned, gone to town, a bridge be crossed with flow in the cedar’s swaddling cloths.” and after this the bridge became peaceful and people were able to cross. However, people feared the children of the cedar and wife, for they were part spirit/tree and human, so they took them and murdered them. The wife spends the rest of her life in tears… (the end)
Other than the Myth/Folk Take, we referenced a lot of a reading we did in class “The Earth as Art.” In the reading there is a discussion about how artist attempt to restore nature and create art that not only states a point/theme but also to create in order to bring about change. Our proposal included the basic ideas of the Myth/Folk Tale (despite the fact that we did not play out the entire story in the project) and the idea of mending the broken earth. We liked the idea of attempting to mend nature, especially as we were unsuccessful in actually accomplishing any sort of healing.
Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison’s piece below inspired the idea of attempting to mend the earth.
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