I happen to be lucky enough to have several jobs, one of them allows me to spend all day outdoors in the winter time. It’s a bloody good thing I love winter! Winter-haters have never spent their brisk cold sunny days outside cross-country skiing or snowshoeing. No, not alpine or snowboarding [boring and ridiculously expensive]. Skiing around our vast network of trails, I also happen to see a great many things. Like trees! Thousands of them. In their wisdom and silence, they stand in mortal beauty. Unfortunately, many are at the mercy of the greedy hands of Homo Sapiens.
Birch bark IS a real treasure – I can understand why Scandinavians cherish the birch tree for their myriad of uses. But peeling off their skin? Not cool. I pass by this particular specimen everyday during job #2 and am deeply saddened.
This tree doesn’t need or want my help, or anyone’s for that matter. It really just wants to be left the fuck alone to heal. But my artist ego cries out ‘inspired!’. It is not my job to change the landscape – my ego isn’t THAT inflated, but I do feel compelled to comment on it. Like, ‘hey asshole go back to montreal and stop destroying our environment’. Too harsh?
In any case, I’ve commenced a Yarnbomb for this tree! It happens to stand at an intersection of trails – that is the Aerobic Corridor, the Portageur, and the Birkbeiner.
These are just some of the colours that may or may not make it into the Bomb, or, tree cozy. Hopefully this artificial bark sweater will quell the prying hands of the unknown thieves, but also provide some sort of humorous element to the skiing experience. All in all, ski people are good people. I’m just here to spice up the highway a bit. The materials I’ve chosen are more for layering and colouring ability, less so trying to replicate the unique papery texture. Linen and mercerized cottons would be better suited on that front, but I think by making a base in beige, and layering strips of stockinette coloured pieces on top of one another would successfully translate as bark-like. I guess we’ll see!
Here are some photos I’ve taken of other nearby silver birches as inspiration for this tag. [Note the layers where others have taken the liberty to steal some tree skin. LEAVE THE TREES BE!]
