mark rockwood

Following up on my previous post, details of Plants Species Currently and Soon to be Extinct. This piece is intended as a gravesite of extinct or threatened plant species of North America. The forms of the gravestones are modeled after a small Southern folk tradition of potters creating odd shaped gravestones for their dead in a time when individuals couldn’t afford to ship stones to mark graves. These object were made in just a few counties in North Carolina. These gravestones mourn both the dying landscape we live in and the decline of folk traditions in the face of mass produced goods.

These pieces are all glazed with kudzu ash produced from its removal from my gardens in an attempt to abate pressure that threatens the gardens I tend to and to maintain the tradition of using ash as a cheap and easily sourced pottery material. Their presentation on sod while evoking a gravesite also speaks to our need to keep manicured landscapes which also contributes to our declining biodiversity.

Image 1: Schweinitzii’s Sunflower (Helianthus schweinitzii) Endangered with 90 populations in the wild remaining.
Image 2: Georgia Dwarf Trillium (Trillium Georgianum) Existing currently only in Whitfield County, Georgia along Swamp Creek
Image 3: Georgia Dwarf Trillium (view 2)
Image 4: St Clair Hawthorn (Crataegu Fecunda) extinct, last seen 2020
Image 5: Franklin Tree (Franklinia alatamaha) extinct in the wild since 1805
Image 6: Sexton Mountain Mariposa Lily (Calochortus indecorus) extinct since 1948
Image 7: Georgia Aster (Symphyotrichum georgianum) previously endangered, due to conservation efforts it is now considered only vulnerable
Image 8: Appalachian Yellow Asphodel (Narthecium montanum) extinct since 1919
Image 9: Georgia Dwarf Trillium (view 3)
Image 10: example of a North Carolina folk grave marker