Trails Marked in Death
This bark was harvested from a local forest here in Minneapolis. The work was created in response to learning about the life cycle of bark beetles and emerald ash borers. The beetles sense sickly or dead trees and deposit their eggs underneath the bark. When the larvae hatch they bore underneath the bark, leaving trails that I then created relief prints from. When the larvae reach adulthood, they emerge from the trees as adult beetles and leave their home in search of another tree to lay their eggs in. I find this story both sad and beautiful in that the trails these creatures leave behind are gorgeous-yet they kill the tree in the process. Yet they also feed the woodpeckers, who have evolved alongside these beetles to feed on them as they burrow through the life-blood of the tree.