Urbanautica

KIRK CRIPPENS. ALONG THE COAST AND MAJESTIC TREES

by Steve Bisson

«The split between culture and nature is a recent fact. A few centuries. For a long time human beings, although forced by their instinctive deficiency to develop other skills, lived in balance with their environment. Traces of those populations have come down to our days although reduced in reserves or to forget their traditions and adopt the lifestyle of the "homus consumer". I can only hope that the stem cells of those peoples can continue to survive as well as the burls of the redwoods.»

I am very happy to write again about Kirk Crippens' photographic work. The last time the topic was the financial real estate crack, and the sad consequences paid by the American middle class forced to abandon their homes. His shots included in the 'Foreclosures USA' series told the failure of an economic model that tore away any ethical roots. His mirror reflected the signs of moral decay more than a financial one. On the ground of the town of Stockton, taken as a sample of an entire country, there remained a wound that perhaps today is still not healed. Today I find myself leafing through two books, published by Schilt Publishing, two stories that bring me back to California to meet two areas famously known for their scenic beauty, for their uncontaminated nature, for the green of its woods, for its almost idyllic landscapes, for the bucolic, pastoral atmospheres, which attract millions of tourists every year.

© Book 'Going South. Big Sur' by Kirk Crippens, Schilt Publishing

© Book 'Going South. Big Sur' by Kirk Crippens, Schilt Publishing

Big Sur is a stretch of coast overlooking the Pacific, whose overwhelming charm has been made famous by beat generation poets and writers. The famous Highway 1 road that winds along the high coasts is today common imagery that many have searched and traveled even if only with their imagination. Here, in the winter of 2017, one of the main bridges collapsed isolating an entire community for months. A land invaded by a sudden quiet. Kirk Crippens decides to cross this broken land, to explore it. He gets help from his friend Torry McQueen who grew up there. So begins his journey through the lost scenarios, equipped with large-format equipment. A journey dragged by the fascination that he feels for these places and for its inhabitants. A feeling that persists and pushes him for two years to document his experience, even after the bridge has been rebuilt and the machines have returned to run along the sinuous curves of that asphalt tongue.

© Kirk Crippens from the series by 'Going South. Big Sur'

© Kirk Crippens from the series by 'Going South. Big Sur'

So Crippens leaves us an unprecedented document, taking us to discover those moments suspended in time. A family walking lonely along a deserted road overlooking the great ocean, an elderly lady with long grey hairs posing in front of the sloping roof of her mountain shack surrounded by trees, the intimacy of houses and their inhabitants who have chosen and perhaps found the peace, a cliffs wrapped in a winter mist that clears the horizon, glimpses of gardens, streets, people, moments that Crippens shares with us. They are pages donated by a writer so that they can ignite our imagination and give life to new stories. Or even just let us breathe an instant of that quite, that isolation that sometimes we all need. 'Going South. Big Sur' is about the search for poetry...

© Kirk Crippens from the series by 'Going South. Big Sur'

© Kirk Crippens from the series by 'Going South. Big Sur'

The second book is titled 'Live Burls'. The burl, for the uninitiated, is described on Wikipedia as «a tree growth in which the grain has grown in a deformed manner. It is commonly found in the form of a rounded outgrowth on a tree trunk or branch that is filled with small knots from dormant buds.» These plant deformations, or forest pathologies, caused by viruses, fungi or wounds, however, are highly sought after and appreciated for their beauty and rarity. This consideration brings us to Redwood National and State Parks, a rich complex of natural parks in Northern California, made famous above all by the presence of ancient redwoods. Think that some of these trees have lived for dozens of centuries. They are real living monuments, as well as giants of nature. This plant species, Crippens tells us, is also known as sempervirens or "ever-living" for their rapid ability to regenerate, thanks to those knotty protuberances we called burls. Despite the tumor-like appearance, those peculiar growths contain the future of the coast redwood forest. They host the stem cells to feed a cycle of reproduction which has lasted 200 million years. For these reasons, redwoods have found protection and admiration in these territories. At least I thought so. Instead, I discovered through Kirk Crippens' work that there is also a form of plant poaching.

© Book 'Live Burls' by Kirk Crippens, Schilt Publishing

© Book 'Going South. Big Sur' by Kirk Crippens, Schilt Publishing

© Book 'Going South. Big Sur' by Kirk Crippens, Schilt Publishing

In 2013, a serious number of trees were targeted by poachers and chainsaws, thus threatening the reproduction and survival of the entire ecosystem. There is something that disturbs and worries in all this. Although we are not new cults of illegal logging or questionable forestry practices, here we find ourselves faced with something more subtle. There is a subtle and perverse malignancy in castrating nature, in sterilizing it. In the range of actions that man has shown to be able to exercise to fight and devastate nature, this appears visibly annoying. I feel once again imprisoned in that sad swamp, looking for a ratio behind the stupidity of the human species. I am baffled, I say it honestly, this book forced me to silence, to mourn. And not for the unhappy fate of the trees told. And not even for yet another wrong suffered by nature. I am convinced that plants, the plant world exist before us and will exist later. From an evolutionary point of view, they have an intelligence superior to that of Man, which of all animal species is certainly the most idiotic and harmful. The only one who is deluded to be able to exist outside or above nature. I am aware of being part of a story, the human one, mediocre and destined to capitulate very soon. What distinguishes Earth from its cousin planets is life. A word that has never been discussed enough. Something extraordinarily rare in the universe. And Man represents the main threat to life. It wasn't always like this. The split between culture and nature is a recent fact. A few centuries. For a long time human beings, although forced by their instinctive deficiency to develop other skills, lived in balance with their environment. Traces of those populations have come down to our days although reduced in reserves or to forget their traditions and adopt the lifestyle of the "homus consumer". I can only hope that the stem cells of those peoples can continue to survive as well as the burls of the redwoods.

© Kirk Crippens, Gretchen LeMaistre from the series 'Live Burls'

Crippens' portraits are composed, objective, posed as if he wanted to restore some dignity to these injured trees. We see the lacerating signs of rape, the scars of civilization. They constitute the memory of a trauma. I look at his photos and hope that this commitment will help me and other people not forget. Maybe these trees have not been offended in vain. My words here respond to this need not to resign, not to be just an indignant spectator and to resist oblivion.

© Kirk Crippens, Gretchen LeMaistre from the series 'Live Burls'

I recommend these books, finely crafted, for their meaningful photographs.

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LINKS
Kirk Crippens
Urbanautica United States
Redwood State and National Parks
'Going South. Big Sur' by Kirk Crippens. Published by Schilt Publishing
'Live Burls' by Kirk Crippens. Published by Schilt Publishing

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