Shades of Ash

For my Context, Form, and Concept course, or CFC, we were asked to create a piece in response to an ecological disaster.  The disaster I choose was the emerald ash borer's infestation of the mid west and surrounding territories.

The emerald ash borer is native to southeast Asia, where it has predators which keep its population in check.  It is thought that the insect traveled on shipping crates from China, which were not properly radiated to kill vermin, insects, and bacteria.  It arrived in Southeastern Michigan in the late 90's, and because the absence of its natural predator in North America, has killed millions of ash trees, causing  gradual, but pronounced economic and environmental problems.

An adult ash borer lays its eggs in the bark of an ash tree.  Its larva then feed on the nutritious xylem and phloem, which act as arteries of water and nutrient transport in the tree.  With these vital lines of transport severely damaged, the tree is unable to move food and water, and eventually dies.
 The path which the ash borer takes through the tree is visible in the dead wood of the ash as these sort of beautiful wavy line forms.

I was inspired how destructive, yet beautiful these forms were. My work is a series of 15 prints, representing the 15 dead ash trees which my parents cut down in their backyard last year.  Each print represents a tree, but also a moment in time of the life of an ash tree.  They are arranged in a linear fashion, where the first print is healthy and green. The emerald ash borer eventually eats away at the tree, indicated by an increase of negative space in the print as well as the shift of the healthy green color to an unhealthy yellowish color, which eventually fades to black.

My intent was not to inform the world of how disastrous the ash borer is: most people are already aware of that. I wanted to take a cynical approach on the concept of an ecological disaster, and how we perceive and portray them.  Society likes to make us aware of ecological disasters in a glorified, sort of idealized way, yet negates solutions to the actual problem.  My piece does exactly that.  I highlighted the beauty of the corrosive forces of the emerald ash borer, and elevated the trees to a martyr-like status, but didn't suggest any sort of solution to the problem.