I've been having conversations lately about creating meaning in art, or, specifically, about NOT creating meaning, not forcing meaning, and instead letting story come through discovery. It's all been kind of liberating for me, a list and outline maker by both inclination and training. For instance, I thought I was writing a story about the intersection of individuals and structures of power and some part of me knew this was all too earnest and so in the process of making my characters human, one of the things I did was give them all mother issues and I didn't even realize the pattern until a couple of people pointed it out to me. I've decided not to investigate this too closely, I'll just notice it out of the corner of my eye as I write and see what develops.
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| Otsiningo Park, you can just see the Chenango River behind. |
I'm fairly certain a beaver did this before the park people cut the tree down to stop it falling on the path, but I've never seen a spiral pattern quite like this on a beaver stump, so I'm not 100% sure. Yet since I can't imagine the person who stopped by the river and chipped patiently away at a tree, let's just say, yes, this is the work of a beaver. I love looking at this and I think it is beautiful, but did the beaver care about that while it was gnawing around the tree? Is it art? Does it have meaning? Do any of these questions matter?
Here, just for comparison and fun, is a photo I took in 2018 of a beaver deforestation and dam-building project in progress. Quite a different style.
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| Binghamton University Nature Preserve |
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