Speak For The Trees / The Exhibition – opens at Friesen Gallery Seattle on 01 April 2010. Paintings, sculpture, photography, glass and conceptual art featured in the publication will be exhibited.
Artists Around the World Come Together To Speak For The Trees
Seventy-six painters, sculptors, photographers, glass and conceptual artists from Ireland to Argentina, Korea to the United States, have come together in an inspiring book to answer a call by Dr. Seuss (in his 1971 classic, The Lorax) to: “Speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.”
The artists in this powerful new book, Speak for the Trees, include both young and emerging artists, and such world-renowned figures as David Hockney, conceptual artist Yoko Ono, pop-surrealist Mark Ryden, and international-environmental artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Each artist contributed artwork, which has been showcased on a two-page spread together with the artist’s thinking on his or her work in relationship to trees, and with a quotation each selected from writers as diverse as Buddha and Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln and Henry David Thoreau, William Shakespeare and Ogden Nash (who memorably wrote: “I think that I shall never see/ A billboard lovely as a tree/ Perhaps unless the billboards fall/ I’ll never see a tree at all”).
Speak For The Trees was composed by Andria Friesen (owner of Friesen Gallery in Seattle, Washington and Sun Valley, Idaho). As she writes in the book’s Epilogue: “Speak For The Trees is not only about art, nor is it solely about the environment, spirituality, science or philosophy. This collection embodies and blends all of these elements and more: it transcends boundaries.” Friesen further adds, this would be an entirely different book were it titled Speak About The Trees.
Speak For The Trees explores the profound relationship humanity has with trees, moving and inspiring all who experience it. This is a reflection, Friesen writes, of something we have “known” for more than five thousand years: “We are connected…Gratitude and respect for nature are paramount. If we tuned in and returned to that deeper understanding and sense of unity, how could the world not be a better place?”
One hundred percent of the proceeds of this first edition (outside of printing costs) will directly and equally benefit the Esalen Institute in California and the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland.
The book itself carries the logo of the Forest Stewardship Council, certifying that all materials are products of responsibly managed forests and verified recycled sources, with all fibers tracked from forest to the consumer. The paper comprising the 200 pages is of 100% sustainable material and is printed with soy-based ink.
Speak For The Trees will be available in early December through its website: speakforthetreesbooks.com museum bookstores throughout the country; amazon.com; and at Friesen Gallery, Seattle, Washington and Sun Valley, Idaho (email: friesen@friesengallery.com).
“If there ever was a time in our evolution of consciousness it is now—the ground is prepared for this planting.”
—Dorothy Maclean / Co-founder of the Findhorn Foundation