Recently, Q and I had the pleasure of joining our friends at Leon, where we had the artspace all to ourselves to view Leon's Garden by Eric Robert Dallimore.
The installation is constructed from pine beetle kill wood out of Silver Plume. Our area of the Colorado Rockies has been beset by pine beetles for several years now, and I love to see people making creative and constructive use of the beetle kill.
There are now snowboards made from beetle-kill wood (Weston, my husband has one and they are beautiful!), furniture, etc.
Dallimore's constructions are simple, beautiful and thought-provoking, and he can tell you a great deal of interesting information about the pine beetle epidemic and the reasons behind it.
B inspecting pellets for wood-burning stove made from beetle kill.
The moss is beautiful, and has to be hand-sprayed regularly with water to keep it living.
The girls were enthralled with the exhibit and spent much time discussing, inspecting and viewing from different angles.
The artist answering questions.
Maps showing the scope and progress of the beetle kill.
S taking phone pics.
The girls enjoying the space.
Sasha looking for new angles.
Instagram girl hard at work.
Leon's Garden is open through March 2, and I highly recommend it, both for adults and kids!
Leon
1112 East 17th Ave
Denver
amazing creations from the kill woods.The Pine Beetle is a nasty creature, is it a native to the area I wonder or was it brought in accidentally.We have them here but not in as great numbers, we have had huge pines on our property destroyed, its such a sad reality of nature,
ReplyDeleteLaurie, there is a "normal" cycle of pine beetles here, but in the past decade or two, for a number of reasons, the cycle has been enormously skewed. Shorter winters and warmer temperatures have apparently increased the breeding cycles of the beetles, and several years of drought have left the trees far more vulnerable to infection. In addition, because there are so many resort areas in our part of the Rockies, and such dense populations, we have prevented the normal forest fire cycle that, in nature, controls the beetle population as well. It's kind of a "perfect storm" of events that has lead to this epidemic of pine beetles. It's a serious problem now in much of our state.
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