<\/i> I saw Twilight<\/a> the other day, the teen vampire movie set in Forks. Local vampire Edward falls for the new kid at school, a pretty transplant from Arizona with the unlikely name Bella Swan. Edward is an unusually urbane vampire. He lives with his family in a Northwest modernist dream house in the woods. He drinks only non-human blood. Deer, mostly. He is sort of like a vegetarian in the vampire world. Oregon scenery (standing in for the Peninsula) co-stars. Whenever the camera can tear itself away from the lovers’ tortured faces, the screen is lit by a million shades of green.<\/p>\n
(Glenn Rudolph, Via<\/a>)<\/p>\n What do you do if you love a monster? What if you are a monster, an ethical and moral creature who happens to be an abomination?<\/p>\n (Glenn Rudolph, Via<\/a>)<\/p>\n In some ways, this project is an abomination. We’re taking…an ecosystem–a dead tree, but a living system–and we are re-contextualizing it….We’re pumping it up with a life-support system. So this piece is in some way perverse. It shows that, despite all of our technology and money, when we destroy a natural system it’s virtually impossible to get it back.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Vivarium log is like the Beast from Beauty and the Beast<\/i>, imprisoned in a magic castle, waiting for Belle to fall in love with him. How do you deal with an abomination? You imprison it (and it will become an abomination partly as a result of the imprisonment) and wait for love to redeem it.<\/p>\n If the Vivarium applies a wishful strain of romantic thought to the problems caused by the destruction of natural systems–a monster in a glass cage to prick our consciences–Gas Works Park<\/a>, the park designed by Richard Haag for the north end of Lake Union, is more pragmatic. <\/p>\n In the course of industrial, utility, mining, and forestry Gas Works’ most striking features–the towering tanks, pipes, and walls That this harnessing did not come without great cost was address by (Matthew Offenbacher, Via<\/a>)<\/p>\n Bloedel is the site of an old logged second-growth forest, transformed Bloedel’ s mosses glacially devouring the evidence of The symbolic and practical uses of decay, its productive and (Grade – detail)<\/p>\n (Allison Schulnik, Via<\/a>)<\/p>\n That many of them, like Carr, looked to the natural environment to find Which lands me at the work which got me thinking about these things in the first place: Gretchen Bennett<\/a>‘s show Hello<\/i><\/a> In the drawing Have a Hangover<\/i> (above), Gretchen chose There is a tenderness to the drawings’ fidelity to layers of (Matthew Day Jackson, Via<\/a>)<\/p>\n The interview snippet with Dion is from a 2007 episode of the PBS television series Art21 <\/i><\/a>focusing on art and ecology. <\/p>\n Surprisingly little has been written about Richard Haag’s work. I’ve For more on Ruskin’s idea of the Gothic, see chapter VI The Nature of Gothic<\/i> from The Stones of Venice<\/a> <\/i>(1851-53). For more on the gayness of the Northwest School, see Matthew Kangas’ Prometheus Ascending: Homoerotic Imagery of the Northwest School<\/i>, from his 2005 collection of essays Epicenter<\/i><\/a> . <\/p>\n![\"glennrudolphgreen.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/glennrudolphgreen.jpg\")
<\/span>In Gothic stories landscape is destiny. A character’s inner life is reflected by their surroundings. In one scene, the young lovers go on a field trip with their biology class to a greenhouse and gaze into a wormy bin of compost. This is an everyday lesson in the damp, decaying, riotously fecund Northwest: the decomposition of dead things is what allows new life to grow. Why is Edward and Bella’s romance accompanied by the lush Northwest landscape? Maybe it is because Edward is a different sort of monster. Vampires are undead, a death which feeds on life in order to obtain a semblance of life, an anti-ecology, a reversal of the nitrogen cycle. Edward struggles to reconcile this existential horribleness with his sense of morality. Bella, meanwhile, is attracted to his dark, freakish, supernatural strangeness. The dilemmas Edward and Bella face echo those of much of the art which engages the history and ecology of the Northwest landscape. <\/p>\n![\"glennrudolphlord.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/glennrudolphlord.jpg\")
<\/span>Perhaps the most obvious example is Mark Dion’s Neukom Vivarium<\/i>, a massive decomposing hemlock log parked inside a green-glass building at the Olympic Sculpture Park<\/a>. <\/p>\n![\"mark](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/mark%20dion%20log.jpg\")
<\/span>In an interview for PBS, Dion had this to say about it: <\/p>\n
\n
\n![\"gasworkspark.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/gasworkspark.jpg\")
<\/span>
\nThis comment, from the initial Environmental Impact Statement, gives a sense of the challenges Haag faced: <\/p>\n
\nworks [the land for the park] has been degraded, soiled, polluted,
\nfouled, defaced, made odious, besmirched, and clogged with filth. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nleft from the old gasification plant –are like the decomposing
\nmedieval churches John Ruskin cultivated an appreciation for in the
\nmid-1800s. By preserving and studying these ruins he hoped to find a
\nway to mediate some of the dehumanizing effects of the industrial
\nrevolution. The ruins at Gas Works Park evoke a powerful nostalgia
\nfor–and mark the passing of–a not-so-distant time, when the enormous
\nresources of our natural environment were harnessed to build a great
\ncivilization.<\/p>\n
\nthe other part of Haag’s plan, which called for “cleaning and greening”
\nthe site. This involved removing toxic sludge, mixing it with filler
\nand stockpiling it in a huge burial mound; introducing microorganisms
\nto digest organic waste, and plants to leech heavy metals and minerals
\nout of the topsoil. This was one of the earliest attempts at
\nbioremediation, using the natural agents of decay and re-growth to set
\nan ecological cycle spinning in a healthy direction. <\/p>\n![\"matthewoffenbachermole.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/matthewoffenbachermole.jpg\")
<\/span>That this sort of remediation is imperfect is something I think Haag acknowledged in another great work, the Bloedel Reserve<\/a> on Bainbridge Island. <\/p>\n
\nby a timber industry family over the course of fifty plus years into a
\nseries of bucolic gardens. Among Haag’s contributions is a moss garden,
\nwhere damp, lush, electric green mosses and lichens are set against
\nmassive, blackened, upturned tree stumps. You can see on the stumps
\nevidence of the cuttings and lashings afflicted by long-ago logging
\nmachines. The mosses and the logs are delicately balanced between
\npreservation and remediation.<\/p>\n
\nclear-cutting, the tar which still occasionally bubbles up through the
\ngreen lawn of the burial mound at Gas Works –these are clearly
\nmonstrous sites–but there is this sense that they are monsters
\nstruggling with their monstrosity. Haag wants to find a cure for the
\nBeast’s condition, but he is also suggesting we love him for his
\nbetweenness, his twilight struggle.<\/p>\n
\npotentially redemptive force, seems to be on quite a few artists’ minds
\nthese days. A few examples: Eli Hansen and Joey Piecuch’s show<\/a>
\nearlier this year at the Helm in Tacoma featured a variety of
\nhand-blown glass stills, spiked with native plants and fungi, poisons,
\nand stuff taken from famously disturbed Northwest sites (“soil from
\nLewis and Clark’s Cape Disappointment camp site, concrete from Boeing
\nplant in Everett”). This was an attempt at redemption by one of the
\noldest forms of useful rot: fermentation. Corin Hewitt’s current show<\/a>
\nat the Seattle Art Museum also hinges on the redemptive power of
\nvegetative decay, in this case in an attempt to remedy some of the
\ntoxic aspects of the culture of photography, art production and
\ncirculation. John Grade <\/a>has
\nbeen working in this territory, subjecting his sculptures to cycles of
\nexhibition, decomposition in natural areas, and then exhibition again.<\/p>\n![\"johngradecledetail.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/johngradecledetail.jpg\")
<\/span>
\nThis interest in decay, industrial sites, and redemption is not a recent development. A painting by Emily Carr from 1935, Scorned as Timber, Beloved of the Sky<\/i>, shows three crazily spindly pine trees rising over a clear-cut. <\/p>\n![\"emilycarrscorned.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/emilycarrscorned.jpg\")
<\/span>
\nThey are almost all attenuated trunk, just a little cap of dark green
\nvegetation at the top. The composition echoes traditional pictures of
\nGolgotha, with Jesus hanging from one of three crosses. The closest
\ntree almost spans the entire canvas’ height, just left of the center;
\nthe other two recede in sharp perspective towards distant, glowing blue
\nhills. The luminous rain-heavy sky frames the closest tree with the
\nkind of radial-light-projecting-through-the-clouds bit that, growing up
\nin Oregon, we used to call the ‘god-light.’ The ravages of heavy
\nindustry have passed, people and machines have hauled off everything
\nuseful. Left behind: the shunned, the freakish, the not worth taking. Scorned as Timber<\/i>
\nis not a picture of abomination in confinement, or abomination in
\nremediation–it is a picture of survival because of abomination. This
\nis a radical move. It says, in effect, forget Belle. This beast does
\nnot need to be redeemed.<\/p>\n![\"allisonschulnik.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/allisonschulnik.jpg\")
<\/span>
\nI think it is significant that this proto-punk gesture by Carr does not
\ndepict a single survivor, but a small group. Survival as a freak
\nrequires community, or at least others nearby. This is something Morris Graves<\/a>, Mark Tobey<\/a>, Guy Anderson<\/a>,
\net al. understood. They were bohemians, esthetes, pacifists, and gay.
\nThe gothic flavor of their work is an expression of the great
\nalienation they felt in Skagit county in the 1940s and 50s. <\/p>\n
\na way to talk about their situation should not be surprising; this
\ncommingling of insides and outsides, of psychic and physical
\nterrain–and, especially, of industrial and personal trauma–has been a
\nconsistent feature of art produced in our region. Graves 1944 gouache Bird Sensing the Essential Insanities<\/i><\/a>
\nshows a flattened little owl in a submissive position, crouching on
\nwhat might be a boulder, looking like it was just stepped on. <\/p>\n![\"morrisgravesbirdred.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/morrisgravesbirdred.jpg\")
<\/span>
\nA skeletal Wounded Gull<\/i> from the next year is beginning to
\ndecompose on a tar-like shore. These birds have suffered grievous
\nthreats and injuries, but they survive. Eventually, in paintings like
\n1969’s Bird Experiencing Light<\/i>, where a very odd-looking bird is awash in a glorious mass of yellow, purple, magenta–they triumph.<\/p>\n
\nlast year at Howard House. Gretchen has consistently investigated
\nnotions of place, psychology, and the Northwest landscape. This is why
\nsome people were startled by these nine colored-pencil drawings based
\non video stills related to the band Nirvana and, especially, Kurt
\nCobain. Most of the stills were from old music video and concert
\nfootage posted on YouTube. A few were captured from the movie Last Days<\/i>,
\nGus Van Sant’s fictionalization of the end of Cobain’s life. Gretchen
\nmade the drawings by projecting the images onto paper and working
\ndirectly over them, trying to capture the luminous effects and odd
\nvisual distortions of the found video.<\/p>\n![\"gretchenbennetthell.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/gretchenbennetthell.jpg\")
<\/span>
\nThe drawings from Hello<\/i> pull together many of the strands I’ve
\nbeen talking about here, in an exceedingly delicate and direct way.
\nWhat is the ethical approach to sites of industrial exploitation
\n(imprisonment? remediation?). How might decay and rot be used as agents
\nof redemption? How can you learn to love an abomination? How do you
\nsurvive being an abomination yourself? Gretchen’s innovation was to
\nreverse the usual direction of landscape metaphor–the direction which
\nRuskin once called “the pathetic fallacy”–which projects the personal
\nout onto the landscape, personifying the natural world. Instead, the
\nHello<\/i> drawings project the landscape back onto the personal. They
\nportray Cobain as a landscape, a landscape we all inhabit.<\/p>\n
\na moment where the camera was directed at Cobain standing directly in
\nfront of a stage light. The top half of the drawing is blasted with
\nlight; body, guitar and microphone are rendered by shivering halos, and
\ndistorted by concentric lens flares. The way Gretchen draws Cobain
\nhere, and in many of the drawings, has obvious parallels to Grave’s
\nbirds and Carr’s trees–the spectral god-light is in full glorious
\nevidence. Also, like in Carr’s painting, the Hello drawings depict a
\nsite of industrial exploitation (a music video is, after all, a
\ncommercial for a record company). There is a similar, peculiar
\ncombination of violence and hushed stillness. This is the moment after
\nthe violence is over. We are witnessing the survivors, triumphant and
\ntranscendent.<\/p>\n
\ndistortion caused by cameras, and then the further decay caused by
\nYouTube’s compression algorithms. This tenderness is like Haag’s at Gas
\nWorks and Bloedel . Gretchen is involved in the remediation of a former
\nindustrial site, searching for a remedy, a way to put decay and
\ndecomposition to work. The Hello drawings manage to simultaneously show
\nthe Cobain who was different, and scorned, and made art from that
\nexperience, and then, suddenly, improbably, with great force, became a
\nvery valuable industrial site, and then–in the end–and this is why
\nthere are images from Last Days<\/i> –the ultimately devastating
\ntoll this exploitation took. In a typically subtle move, one which sent
\ntingles up my spine when I realized it, the drawings were shown without
\nglass in their frames. This act of opening up, of making vulnerable, is
\nas clear a sign as any of Gretchen’s desire to remediate the many
\nlayers of mediation between us and these images–to create a productive
\nstate of decay, to understand redemption as continued and ongoing
\nstruggle, and to recognize Cobain as the monster he was, as the
\nmonsters we are too.<\/p>\n![\"matthewjacksonmons.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/matthewjacksonmons.jpg\")
<\/span>Offenbacher ‘s Notes<\/i><\/b>:
\nMy editor told me I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the archetypal good vampires Angel and Spike from the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/i><\/a>.
\nFor anyone with an interest in the theme of the redemptive power of
\nlove on vampires, these characters–especially Spike–are infinitely
\nmore complex and interesting creations than Twilight<\/i> ‘s Edward. The landscape they inhabit, however, is much more typically Gothic. <\/p>\n
\nbeen influenced by an excellent essay Elizabeth Meyer wrote for a
\nmonograph edited by William Saunders: Richard Haag: Bloedel Reserve and Gas Work Park<\/i>
\n(Princeton Architectural press, 1998). The public comment from the Gas
\nWorks EIS was written by Benella Caminiti, as cited by Meyer. <\/p>\n
\nThe terms he uses to describe Gothic architecture are: savageness,
\nchangefulness, naturalism, grotesqueness, rigidity, and redundance. <\/p>\n