Following the devastating 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fires, artist Adrienne Defendi began photographing brush piles in Big Basin Redwoods State Park. For the artist, these post-fire accumulations featured in her project, Canopy Constellations, became symbolic of loss and renewal, representing the interconnectedness and the cyclical nature of ecosystems.
In this interview, Defendi speaks about her project’s emotional and spiritual connection to the land and how it deepens through her chosen medium of toned cyanotypes. The work is currently on view in our 2024 Vision(ary) exhibition.
Adrienne Defendi is an artist whose work explores the cyclical, the ephemeral, and the fragility of life. Her lifelong interests in memory and myth, narrative and nostalgia inform her photographic expression and artistic process. Employing different mediums, from analog to alternative processes and various printmaking techniques, her practice charts elements of loss and ritual, and the boundless possibilities within reiteration and experimentation. An award-winning artist, Adrienne has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, and is currently an artist-in-residence with the City of Palo Alto’s Cubberley Artist Studio Program.
Website: www.adriennedefendi.com
Instagram: @adrienne_defendi
How did the brush piles in Big Basin after the 2020 CZU lightning fires inspired your project?
Adrienne Defendi: A little background to the series: I had documented all kinds of accumulated matter in the aftermath of the CZU Lightning Complex fires in a neighborhood in Boulder Creek where debris was collected for removal. At this time, the piles were made of charred house debris (metal infrastructure, brick, cars, household appliances, and more domestic items,for example, a sewing machine, cutlery, and ceramics). I returned habitually to capture the clean-up effort; the housing lots were eventually cleared leaving solitary brick chimneys standing as sentinels of loss. By spring 2021, the chimneys, too, were gone, to prepare the land for sale and reconstruction.
Similarly, in Big Basin Redwoods State Park there was dedicated and extensive clean-up work, and piles of botanical debris amassed everywhere in and around the park, I continued to document mounds, from the delicate piles of swept twigs and leaves along the Redwood Loop path to impressive piles of cut trunks and branches stacked for their eventual prescribed burn. I hiked the trail along the Opal Creek that had over a hundred piles, each with their own unique architectural beauty, and returned monthly to document them until their prescribed burn. The brush piles, their intricate assemblage, and the deep appreciation for those who created them, are the inspiration for this series.
You talk about brush piles as symbolic of loss, remembrance, and transformation. Can you expand a little more on the power they carry?
AD: Brush piles are a standard practice for general forest upkeep, yet their increased presence in light of the destructive fires struck a deep chord within me. The piles reminded me of burial mounds, marking loss and remembrance, and transformation: fallen and burnt botanical matter was gathered in brush piles to be burned in fire prevention management, and each one signified, for me, a memorial mark of ritual and mourning. For more context, during this same period in my studio I was making my own “Memorial Mounds,” stacks of collagraph prints imprinted with human hair and burn-scar charcoal pigment, asking myself: What is forever lost? Is loss lost forever? Is loss only derivative? When stacked, the prints convey a ceremonial presence, a book of leaves, archived memories, a quiet memorial; when unstacked, they are transformed and create another kind of visual narrative, rhythmic and varied. I viewed the brush piles in Big Basin through a similar lens and appreciated their ephemeral and cyclical characteristics. Since the public reopening of Big Basin in June 2023, I continued to document the accumulated brush piles to commemorate all the labor and care by staff and volunteers who restored the park and conducted prescribed burns of the piles.
We love the questions you asked yourself and how they reflect visually throughout your work. We’d like to ask, how has your relationship to the land evolved emotionally and/or spiritually? And how has the idea of “land” changed after working on this project?
AD: For some time, I have felt a deep affinity to the natural world, to death and dying, to cyclical renewal and possibility. Working on this series focused my art process and intentions, and opened new dialogues for me in regards to environmental issues and the dedicated efforts involved in conservation. In my work, I am drawn to beauty found through serendipity and experimentation, and what is new in this series is how I intentionally curated and privileged the idea of reciprocal care and collaboration in restoring the environment. I returned to the same locations over an extended period of time which allowed for a deeper examination of renewal and transformation.
Your technique is fascinating. Could you explain the significance of the cyanotype printing process in relation to the themes present in your project?
The cyanotype, an early photographic process first used for scientific documentation as early as 1842 (for example, Anna Atkins’ foundational work of botanicals and algae), recalls the photographic history of scientific exploration and archived knowledge. I love the cyanotype’s tactile process and how it allows me to explore imagery with large digital negatives, toning solutions, burn-scar ash, and multiple exposures. Canopy Constellations highlights a cyclical and inherent relationship among the earth, the sky, the forests, and the atmosphere, and implicitly ourselves. As I continued to document the brush piles and their prescribed burn, I felt that sunlight exposures offered me close collaboration with the elements, while also allowing for ongoing experimentation.
Let’s dive in further. Can you guide us through the process of toning the cyanotype prints in a redwood solution?
AD: Collecting redwood bark from the proximity of the Big Basin Redwoods State Park and my own backyard, I place pieces of torn bark in a large pot with tap water, bring it to a boil, and then simmer the solution for about an hour or so until the water is an opaque brown red. Straining out the bark debris, I prepare a toning bath in a large tray where I place wet cyanotype prints, soaking from 5-30 minutes, agitating approximately every 5 minutes. Each batch of toning solution presents its own particular hue and reacts uniquely to each print. I often recoat, re-expose, and retone prints in an explorative and intuitive manner, and enjoy each print’s unique evolution.
What inspired the decision to print the cyanotype images in the round and how does this choice enhance the representation of your artistic concept?
AD: Both the print in the round and the grid pattern are directly inspired by a spherical crown densiometer, a forester’s tool that I fell in love with on a scientific nature walk while on the Art About Artist Residency in June 2023. I held the square wooden jewel-like box open in the palm of my hand with arm outstretched under a tree canopy, which is reflected in a round mirror etched with twenty-four squares. The grid of twenty-four and a series of calculations help assess the density of a forest overstory or canopy. The circular reflection intrigued me, especially how I looked down at the tool’s mirror to decipher what was above; the imagery in the series animates this dynamic framework.
By giving the series specific parameters – the image in the round within a square print – I reference the scientific tool and explore imagery from the sky to the ground in both a representational way (for example, a straight documentation of a brush pile) as well as the imagined (the overlaying of multiple images and exposures) suggesting movement, change, and transformation. The use of the circle evokes our own earth, our observational eye, and recalls the scientific lens of a microscope, monocle, or even binoculars (as in the case of the Mother Tree print with two circles that overlap like a Venn diagram). I am fascinated by the positive and negative imagery in the series which intimates the relationship between presence and absence, destruction and creation, and suggests a world in constant transformation.
The grid is directly inspired by the twenty-four square pattern etched on the mirror of the spherical crown to invite inquiry and to offer a novel way of reframing what we see. The grid pattern speaks to the idea of taking measure of what is above and below, and highlights themes of interconnectivity and cyclical transformation, just as the grid imagery depicts a forest life cycle (from forest, to burnt ash, to regrowth). And pushing this notion further, the work implicitly invites us to examine our coexistence with our own forests, communities, and natural surroundings.
How do you hope viewers will interpret and connect with the series, considering the environmental themes embedded in your project and the current state of the world?
I hope viewers connect with the beauty and wonder of Big Basin’s revival and of any scorched or damaged land dear to the viewer. I hope viewers consider their own agency in the cycle of life, personally and locally, in their own “backyards” in terms of conservation and preservation (and even one’s own mortality and legacy). Many of the brush piles I captured were built by volunteers dedicated to Big Basin’s preservation, and so many working hands are vital for intentional and visionary sustainability.
In what ways do you see your work contributing to larger dialogues on conservation, sustainability, and preservation, especially in the face of natural disasters?
Perhaps in a very small way the series offers solace, testimony, and hope for recovery. The series Canopy Constellations embraces cycles of transformation and commemorates those dedicated to restoring Big Basin represented in the beautiful brush piles. It celebrates the perseverance and adaptability of the environment/forest itself as conveyed in the ancient coastal redwood, endearingly named “The Mother Tree” or “The Mother of the Forest” (an image featured in the series) that has survived many forest fires, most recently in 2020. It takes labor to chart loss. And it takes labor to move through loss to find resolve and working solutions in our ever-transforming worlds.
