Painting a full measure of the first movement of the full "Blued Trees" symphony October 4, 2015

This post will be revised over the next few weeks as time gets close to the full symphony event. Please check in to see those revisions. I am posting today because the first outreach to the media has begun. As of now, artists are organizing and effecting full measures for Blued Trees in at least four states in America.

There are already instructions in previous posts here for painting individual trees that would be part of a Greek Chorus, but I wanted to also create a new post for those who want to generate an entire measure (or several) to participate in the first movement of the full symphony scheduled for Oct. 4. 

The general pattern of distribution of painted trees for one full measure is identical to the musical score and the map of painted trees in Peekskill from the Overture installed June 21, 2015. The illustration below represents an overlay of how that distribution looked on the terrain for Overture. 

The Overture measure of Blued Trees in Peekskill, New York

This is a map of the completed distribution of painted trees from the Overture, which can be approximated on additional sites:

Edited sketch used to file copyright on completed measure of Blued Trees.

Appropriate sites for a full (one-thrd mile) measure of the Blued Trees symphony first movement, are corridors of private land, threatened by condemnation for natural gas expansion. Each measure is 1/3 mile of that corridor., approximately 1800 linear ft.) The minimum number of trees that would be painted in that measure would be 10, but whole and half notes can be represent by either painting larger trees, or clusters of trees.

In terms of the symphonic structure, this first movement of Blued Tees is conceived in classically discursive sonata form. It represents a conversation between the life of the forests that would be destroyed and the water they protect, and the death meted out by fossil fuels and the corporations that produce the fossil fuels creating global warming. Two more movements and a coda will ensue in due time.

As I recently discussed in the UK for my presentation at the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester and as part of panels for the International Society for Ecological Restoration there, the first task in creating a measure of the symphony, is to study the satellite (google earth) maps of the site to understand the terrain, and then walk it carefully. The spatial distribution is disorienting at first but then becomes more obvious. You will find, as I did, that certain trees, usually the oldest "call" to you to be soloists in the installation.

More information will be added as questions arise I will try to clearly answer.

Connecting dots between "Blued Trees," the Newton Creek superfund site and parts unknown

Last Friday evening I got two pieces of seemingly unrelated information. The good news was that I have been offered and accepted an ISCP/NEA residency, beginning on October 1st until December 31, 2015, to work on the Newton Creek problem. The Newton Creek problem is that it is a superfund site in New York.

Within hours of that news, I also learned that the Spectra natural gas pipeline corporations, in charge of the Algonquin expansion that would pass near the Indian Point facility, also in New York, the site of the Blued Trees overture launch has moved a month earlier than we expected to condemn the land and take it from private landowners by eminent domain. That news has accelerated pressure to expedite the legal process that would protect Blued Trees, the land it's on, and the community it's in with the fund raising through Rockethub that would support that process. The news came as I was also preparing to leave for the UK, for the Society for Ecological Conference, in Manchester, where I will be presenting about trigger point theory and launching the Blued Trees film in the Whitworth Gallery, at the University of Manchester.

Back in 1997, when I first daylighted the Ghost Nets site to restore the estuarine system, I took a shot of the moment when fresh water passed through the highest known storm surge line, indicated with granite chips left over from the granite industry that had buried the former wetland rocky intertidal patch, and met salt water for the first time in about 100 years. I called that shot, "Connecting the Dots."

"Connecting the Dots" 1997

Friday night, I began connecting a much larger set of dots, between the thinking that creates a superfund site, the site of a possible even greater ecological disaster, between natural gas and a nuclear facility with a history of problems, on the banks of the Hudson River, miles from several major East coast cities, and the people I look forward to meeting in Manchester. Each of these sites, are locations I would identify as trigger points: places where a small area could impact entire bioregions. Connecting these dots of trigger points will lead to parts unknown: parts where we will all rescue the earth from ourselves, or witness a great loss for all life.