Fifty Trees Artist Book
I created this artist book as a quiet exploration of the state trees of the United States. 44 pages, 6.25 x 9.25 x 1.5″, 2 variable copies made.
Materials & tools:
- Inkjet-printable synthetic vellum
- Water-based monoprint pigments and media
- Pen-and-ink drawings on bond paper
- Digitization of drawings with Adobe Illustrator
- Scanning of monoprints with an HP LaserJet Pro 200 color MFP
- Page imposition with Adobe InDesign
- Laser printing on top of monoprints with an HP LaserJet Pro 200 color MFP
- Hand-binding with cotton thread using single sheet coptic stitch
Quotations about tree species:
Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life.
Berg, Peter editor. Reinhabiting a Separate Country: A Bioregional Anthology of Northern California. San Francisco: Planet Drum Foundation, 1978. Attributed to John Muir.The pine tree seems to listen, the fir tree to wait: and both without impatience: they give no thought to the little people beneath them devoured by their impatience and their curiosity.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits. 1878.In snowbound, voiceless mountain depths, to herald spring, pine trees sound in tune.
String of Beads: Complete Poems of Princess Shikishi. 1200Around in silent grandeur stood the stately children of the wood.
Maple and elm and towering pine mantled in folds of dark woodbine.
Dorr, Julia C. R. “At the Gate,” Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations. New York, London: Funk & Wagnalls company, 1922.Night hovers all day in the boughs of the fir tree.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Essays: Second Series, 1844An oak is no respecter of persons.
Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac. London; New York: Oxford University Press, 1949.And the poorest twig on the elm-tree was ridged inch deep with pearl.
Lowell, James Russell. “Love,” The Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell. Boston, J.R. Osgood, 1871.Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land.
London, Jack. White Fang. New York :Tom Doherty Associates, 1989.The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.
Muir, John. John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir; edited by Linnie Marsh Wolfe (1938, reprinted by University of Wisconsin Press, 1979). Quote from July 1890, page 313.And in the afternoon they entered a land – but such a land! A land hung in mourning, darkened by gigantic cypresses, submerged; a land of reptiles, silence, shadow, decay.
Cable, George Washington. The Grandissimes: A Story of Creole Life. Scribener’s Monthly, Vol. 29, 1880.The maple tree that night without wind or rain let go its leaves because its time had come.
McCarthy, Eugene. “The Maple Tree.” Cool Reflections. Owings Mills, Maryland, 1997.The stripped and shapely maple grieves the ghosts of her departed leaves. The ground is hard, as hard as stone. The year is old. The birds have flown.
Updike, John. “November,” A Child’s Calendar: Poems. Live Oak Media, 2004.Heed not the night; a summer lodge amid the wild is mine— ’Tis shadowed by the tulip-tree, ’tis mantled by the vine.
Bryant, William Cullen. “The Strange Lady,” Poems. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1840.The seed was sown—it budded—it blossomed—attained maturity;
It spread out—and budded again and joined line to line—
Like the candle-nut strung on one stem;
‘Tis lighted—it burns aglow and sheds its light around o’er the land.
Translation of the “Tako” [song] by S. Savage. Dr. Wyatt Gill’s papers. Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. 21, No. 2. New Plymouth, New Zealand: 1912.O had the monster seen those lily hands tremble like aspen leaves upon a lute.
Shakespeare, William. Titus Andronicus. 1564-1616The birch trees loom ahead like a brotherhood of ghosts.
Sandell, Lisa Ann. Song of the Sparrow, 2007. New York: Scholastic Press, 2001.Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above
Don’t fence me in
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don’t fence me in
Let me be by myself in the evenin’ breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please
Don’t fence me in
Porter, Cole. “Don’t Fence Me In.” New York: Harms, 1945.Did the palo verde blush yellow all at once?
Armantrout, Rae. “Unbidden,” Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 2010.
State trees:
| State | Tree | Scientific Name | Date Adopted |
| Alabama | Longleaf Pine | Pinus palustris | 1949 |
| Alaska | Sitka Spruce | Picea sitchensis | 1962 |
| Arizona | Blue Palo Verde | Parkinsonia florida | 1954 |
| Arkansas | Loblolly Pine | Pinus taeda | 1939 |
| California | Coast Redwood / Giant Sequoia | Sequoia sempervirens / Sequoiadendron giganteum | 1937 |
| Colorado | Colorado Blue Spruce | Picea pungens | 1939 |
| Connecticut | White Oak “See Also: Charter Oak | Quercus alba | 1947 |
| Delaware | American Holly | Ilex opaca | 1939 |
| Florida | Sabal Palm | Sabal palmetto | 1953 |
| Georgia | Southern Live Oak | Quercus virginiana | 1937 |
| Hawaii | Candlenut Tree | Aleurites moluccanus | 1959 |
| Idaho | Western White Pine | Pinus monticola | 1935 |
| Illinois | White Oak | Quercus alba | 1973 |
| Indiana | Tulip Tree | Liriodendron tulipifera | 1931 |
| Iowa | Bur Oak | Quercus macrocarpa | 1961 |
| Kansas | Eastern Cottonwood | Populus deltoides | 1937 |
| Kentucky | Tulip-tree | Liriodendron tulipifera | 1956 |
| Louisiana | Bald Cypress | Taxodium distichum | 1963 |
| Maine | Eastern White Pine | Pinus strobus | 1945 |
| Maryland | White Oak | Quercus alba | 1941 |
| Massachusetts | American Elm | Ulmus americana | 1941 |
| Michigan | Eastern White Pine | Pinus strobus | 1955 |
| Minnesota | Red Pine | Pinus resinosa | 1953 |
| Mississippi | Southern Magnolia | Magnolia grandiflora | 1952 |
| Missouri | Flowering Dogwood | Cornus florida | 1955 |
| Montana | Ponderosa Pine | Pinus ponderosa | 1949 |
| Nebraska | Eastern Cottonwood | Populus deltoides | 1972 |
| Nevada | Bristlecone Pine | Pinus longaeva | 1987 |
| New Hampshire | American White Birch | Betula papyrifera | 1947 |
| New Jersey | Northern Red Oak | Quercus rubra | 1950 |
| New Mexico | Piñon Pine | Pinus edulis | 1949 |
| New York | Sugar Maple | Acer saccharum | 1956 |
| North Carolina | Longleaf Pine | Pinus palustris | 1963 |
| North Dakota | American Elm | Ulmus americana | 2007 |
| Ohio | Ohio Buckeye | Aesculus glabra | 1953 |
| Oklahoma | Eastern Redbud | Cercis canadensis | 1937 |
| Oregon | Douglas-fir | Pseudotsuga menziesii | 1939 |
| Pennsylvania | Eastern Hemlock | Tsuga canadensis | 1931 |
| Rhode Island | Red Maple | Acer rubrum | 1964 |
| South Carolina | Sabal Palm | Sabal palmetto | 1939 |
| South Dakota | Black Hills Spruce | Picea glauca | 1947 |
| Tennessee | Tulip-tree | Liriodendron tulipifera | 1947 |
| Texas | Pecan | Carya illinoinensis | 1919 |
| Utah | Quaking Aspen | Populus tremuloides | 2014 |
| Vermont | Sugar Maple | Acer saccharum | 1949 |
| Virginia | Flowering dogwood | Cornus florida | 1956 |
| Washington | Western Hemlock | Tsuga heterophylla | 1947 |
| West Virginia | Sugar Maple | Acer saccharum | 1949 |
| Wisconsin | Sugar Maple | Acer saccharum | 1949 |
| Wyoming | Plains Cottonwood | Populus deltoides | 1947 |