Discuss: Sawdust Mountain

I lived in the NW shortly after exiting the Army in 1975. Unemployment was at high point then, and I ended up appropriating (taking what wasn’t mine) shake bolts from old logging operations to get by. Interesting to see that folks are still gathering what another man spills.

Seattleites, and Pacific Northwesterners:
Please consider joining us for Eirik Johnson’s lecture at the Henry Art Gallery - Thursday, October 22 at 7PM:

http://henryart.org/events/show/167

Excellent portrait of lives being lived far from either ongoing resource extraction or “green” professions.  Sometimes the present and future of rural communities which have lost their ability to generate good jobs and tax bases feel like science fiction stories of wastelands on distant planets…they are places, they have histories, they have people doing valuable things, but they are caught in a timeless limbo.  I worry that the condition could spread far and wide unless a great many efforts come to fruition that currently are not high on the priority lists of politicians and corporations.  Photos and stories from other parts of America and the world seem to prove this is already the case.  I miss the resource-base economies of the Northwest, I used to log and work on farms, it was a great way to live.  Those large windmills on rolling landscapes that have somehow become compelling images each have seven tons of copper in them.  We keep using raw materials coming from somewhere even as we try to shrink our carbon footprint.  We—all of us—blew it, really blew it, and what is left is poignant and beautiful and terrifying.

I want more! Lets hear the artist’s perspective on the topic of the tree canopy, its decimation both in rural communities, and the urban core. The visuals added so much to this piece.