Entomologlyph
acrylic & watercolor on 18 x 24 wood panel

a conversation around a regenerative outlook on the devastation of conifer forests wrought by the epidemic of the mountain pine beetle. Titled Entomologlyph to suggest that some of these markings can be perceived as language and scripture for what a forest could become in the wake of such catastrophic lost. A perspective shift. None of this is to excuse global human impact, not to celebrate the destruction, and particularly on the ancient white bark pine trees, who became enlisted as an endangered species in 2022 (mostly from a fungus known as blister rust but they are vulnerable to beetles nonetheless). In fact, it’s a blue stain fungus that the beetles permit into the vascular system of the pine trees that is killing them. The cycle of this otherwise endemic insect has been pushed to the extreme from drought and stress brought on by a warming climate: what cold temperatures would otherwise sustain have dropped so dramatically that the beetles have spread en masse beyond their typical hosts of old, retiring conifer trees to any that are within their range. Wyoming had a hard hit in 2007 with a peak in 2010, and now a recent resurgence in 2023. The conversation is: what if an acidic soil needs to become alkaline for a different kind of growth to support the climate to come? What if fireweed needs to grow, to remake the high plains or a different kind of forest to arrive in the future (and if you read about how white bark pines arrived here in the first place, there is some insight there, because they traveled here from Siberia); so what gate opens for a new keystone species to emerge? What can be done to support this erratic change, what would the purpose of a beetle have in this cycle of renewal? What can’t be saved, but instead, stewarded forward, and what if the beetles are communicating through these shapes?