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Ripley Butterfield

@ripleyfolio

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public artist & library worker
@processingcollapse

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This graphic visualizes a network of public libraries within a 50-mile radius. Each line corresponds to an actual road, connecting regional library branches by means of travel.

The framework for our project mirrors a New York State regulation prohibiting the movement of ash wood over 50 miles from where it was felled to prevent the spread of the Emerald Ash Borer. Processing Collapse will materialize in public libraries within a 50-mile radius of the forest in Accord, NY where the dead and dying ash was noticed, harvested, and transformed into artworks.

At least 135 libraries have been identified within range.

#processingcollapse #publicart #ecoart #libraryart #publiclibraries #emeraldashborer @michaelasbill @ripleyfolio @npsculpture by @ripleyfolio

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2 years ago

This week I shared months of work toward a @processingcollapse project for the Mountain Top Library in Tannersville, NY. There will be two hand-carved boughs of Eastern hemlock installed beside the front doors of the library. At ten feet tall, they render the needles, growth nodes and buds at 125x magnification.

The wood for this project comes from an Eastern hemlock that uprooted and died on the Kaaterskill Rail Trail, less than three miles from the library.

For my final review with @npsculpture I staged the carving-in-progress alongside writings, photos, and ephemera of forest research, regional history, and library collaboration. Hemlock holds a noted place in the regional history of the Catskills and Hudson Valley, where its bark was harvested en masse for the leather tanneries of the 19th century. The second-growth hemlock forest, facing existential threat today from the non-native hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA), is not perceived with as much public relevance.

I learned to recognize hemlock by looking for wool—a sign of the insect killing it. Then, I couldn’t stop looking at the tree.

Thank you to @alexis_elton_artist and @emiliehoussart for being an incredible committee to my unconventional “thesis,” to @emily_puthoff for creating a space for me in the wonderful Sculpture program, and to my collaborator @michaelasbill for committing to forests & libraries with me. The work continues!

(For more about hemlock and Mountain Top, visit processingcollapse.com where I am building out our research archive. There is so much to share and so much more to come). by @ripleyfolio

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5 months ago

Peeling the bark from an uprooted Eastern hemlock.

Stands of hemlocks in varying states of death and decline are becoming ubiquitous in New York, where this tree has defined huge swathes of our ecosystem. The distinct shade and cool floor of hemlock forests are becoming eerily bright as branches fall and boughs are drained of life by the hemlock woolly adelgid.

Hemlocks had only just began to reestablish in parts of the Catskills and Hudson Valley where they were obliterated by the 19th century leather tanning industry. Barkpeelers spent the spring and summer felling, scoring, and peeling hemlocks to harvest their tannin-rich bark. The vast majority of trees were left to rot in the clearings; hemlock has never been considered good lumber.

The present collapse of hemlock has been a prolonged spiral. Adelgid populations initially stalled in the tree’s northern range because of freezing winters. As our yearly temperatures rise, it becomes more and more successful.

The laborers who did the footwork of denuding hemlock forests in the 19th century would have experienced the intense fuchsia color of hemlock’s inner bark as they split it. They would have smelled a rich, spiced, astringent scent as they pried the bark off with their bark spuds. And as hemlock disappeared, they saw the forest shift to hardwood saplings and underbrush.

In that story of extraction exists a relationship to trees that feels relevant, and strangely absent, today.
As we actively lose Eastern hemlock, our work is to see, acknowledge, and fall in love with its complex life and history in this landscape.

(Last two slides are from Peeling and Piling Bark for Prattsville Tannery, c. 1850)

@npsculpture @np_fpa #Easternhemlock #ecoart #sociallyengagedart #publicart #hemlockwoollyadelgid taken in Accord, New York by @ripleyfolio

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a year ago

It’s been a busy time for Processing Collapse!

At @waamart we’re pinpointing connections between the onset of chestnut blight and the rise of artist colonies in Woodstock. We’ve mapped the stump sprouts—living remnants of the former forest—on Overlook Mountain, and found an amazingly dense population there (over 50 just beside the trail!) Last week we were gifted two antique chestnut boards by Ira Brandes. We hope to use this material, along with stump sprout wood, to craft our work for the Woodstock Library.

We have also been busy studying American chestnut, Eastern hemlock, and white ash in other parts of our research radius. Yesterday we made a formal proposal for a public artwork centered on the ash collapse for the Rosendale Library.

We’re also taking part in the @np_fpa @npmfa Composium! Stay tuned for more information about our Carbon Harvest in the Eco Art Lab (Saturday 3:30-6:00). by @ripleyfolio

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a year ago

WAAM residency dispatch (weeks 1 & 2)

To many, the history of Woodstock begins with the establishment of the Byrdcliffe and Maverick arts colonies in the first few years of the 20th century. Yet the landscape that Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead, Jane Byrd McCall, Bolton Brown and Hervey White selected as the setting for a utopian experiment was fresh off a century of deep extraction. We’ve been reading Alf Evers’ Woodstock: History of an American Town, and learning about how agriculture, leather tanning, glass fabrication and other local industries irrevocably altered the forest.

On our first research day in Woodstock we took a walk on the trail ascending Overlook Mountain. There were numerous American chestnut stump sprouts growing beside the path. As soon as we spotted one of those beautiful serrated leaves, we saw more and more of them. The tallest of the young trees were 15-20ft tall, but very thin. It seems like in most forests that have been preserved since the early 20th century we can reliably find young chestnut trees. They return again and again from the same stump that originally succumbed to chestnut blight—before falling into decline themselves.

The persistent presence of these short-lived sprouts helps us imagine the former forest. Woodstock’s early artists were working among dying American chestnut trees, and, we soon discovered, sometimes used the remnants for their own work.

An enormous privilege of working in the YES Gallery is our proximity to the WAAM archive, and wonderful archivist, Emily Jones. A bit of digging through the archives last Thursday revealed that the iconic Maverick Horse was crafted from American chestnut! One article even describes the work as being carved from a “hollow log.” Given that the sculpture was made in 1924, it seems probable that dead, blighted chestnut trees were readily available.

(Read the full update at processingcollapse.com/woodstock) taken in WAAM - Woodstock Artists Association & Museum by @ripleyfolio

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a year ago

Our sculpture, Lodged, is now installed at @hudsonvalleyseedco ! Come see it during Upstate Art Weekend.

We are excited to announce that Hudson Valley Seed Company is championing our public art project for libraries by helping us launch a fundraiser. Their store will carry our handmade objects made from precious remnants of fallen ash trees.

Our 1:4 scale shipping pallets are built from the wood of a single dead ash tree harvested in Accord, NY. These specimens of forest collapse showcase traces of the Emerald Ash Borer infestation that is decimating the North American ash. EAB is thought to have been introduced to this continent through untreated shipping materials.

Our spoons are hand carved from the offcuts of this disappearing material. Each spoon is numbered to index discoveries from the process of making from a species in collapse.

Please stop by Hudson Valley Seed Company at 11 Airport Rd, Accord, NY, to support our project and see our living sculpture.

@upstateartweekend runs Thursday July 17-Sunday July 20. Store hours are 10AM-4:30PM.
Opening reception on Saturday July 20, 2-4PM.

@npsculpture #ecoart #ashtree #fraxinus #sociallyengagedart #publicart #emeraldashborer #upstateartweekend taken in Hudson Valley Seed Co. by @ripleyfolio

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a year ago

We’re installing a new iteration of Lodged at Hudson Valley Seed Company and preparing to debut the work, and a fundraiser for our library projects, during Upstate Art Weekend.

Lodged is a living sculpture that presents the trunk and root mass of a young White Ash tree that died next to a stream. The tree was removed from the forest and rearticulated to replicate the low angle at which it was suspended against a neighboring tree.

A carved channel running the length of the trunk will be filled with biochar (made from the other half of this tree) and soil. That fertile mixture will eventually support a small meadow of HVSC seedlings.

Opens Saturday, July 19. 11 Airport Rd, Accord, NY.
@hudsonvalleyseedco @upstateartweekend @npsculpture taken in Hudson Valley Seed Co. by @ripleyfolio

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a year ago

Day one of work on Uprooted.
We started the process of releasing soil and rock from the root mass of a collapsed Eastern hemlock. The entanglement between this tree and the surrounding ecosystem is intense and almost overwhelming. Some parts of the root system are dry and fragile, some strong and dense, still others pulpy with rot.

Join us today as we continue to unearth the root mass of this tree. As we work with remnants of hemlock woolly adelgid infestation, we will also peel the tree’s bark. This reanimates a practice that brought about the first collapse of this species in the Catskills: leather tanning with Eastern hemlock bark.

The Longest Day is at 54 Kornell Dr, Haines Falls NY from 10-6.

#easternhemlock #hemlockwoollyadelgid #ecoart #rootmass #forestcollapse #barkpeeling #publicart #sociallyengagedart taken in Haines Falls, New York by @ripleyfolio

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a year ago

This past winter, we took a walk with Cara Gentry, Coordinator of Land Stewardship at Wallkill Valley Land Trust, in search of a fallen ash tree in Rosendale. Our hope was to find a tree to use for a proposed public artwork at the Rosendale Library.

We discovered a beautiful ash on WVLT lands that was suspended above the ground on an old stone wall, preventing the wood from deteriorating.

With help from WVLT volunteer Gary Jacobson (and his adorable jeep) we cut the trunk into eight segments and used our log arch to pull them out of the forest.

The next step will be milling these pieces and letting them dry.

@rosendalelibrary @npsculpture #emeraldashborer #publicart #sociallyengagedart #ashtree #functionalextinction #publiclibrary #hudsonvalley #jeep #logarch #ecoart #publicsculpture by @ripleyfolio

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a year ago

Tapped, Peeled is a topographical map of the 1200 square foot area around an abandoned bucket in the forest of Warwarsing, NY.

The map is made of an Eastern hemlock tree recently killed by woolly adelgid infestation (one of many).

The burned text comes from my field notes. On one side of the map I wrote observations and thoughts from walks in the forest. On the reverse side is an amalgamation of historical speculation, research and possibilities of what could have happened there.

Finding the bucket and wondering if it may have been used for maple sap collection was a catalyst. I am trying to understand the history of overlooked places through what is present and what has collapsed. by @ripleyfolio

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a year ago

Since June I’ve visited 37 public libraries that are not local to me. Each has been within a prescribed radius of 50 miles, and so can be considered regionally connected, though they have been situated in valleys, atop mountains, on roads and in cities, none quite alike. So far this has included 4 NY library systems and one out of state.

The work is a collaborative effort with Michael Asbill to extend and transform Processing Collapse, a decade-long artist project that acknowledges and bears witness to the impending extinction of the North American ash forest, into the particular public context of libraries. Our insistence on exhibiting in these spaces lends itself to questions about the perceived death or obsolescence of public libraries. Librarians are constantly defending their own physical existence in a time when online access to information is thought to be all-encompassing. But libraries are proving themselves to be vital in practice, on the ground. Rural communities depend on them for social services and relief from isolation. They employ, encourage literacy, and offer us a place to just be. They are archives, holding and displaying the personal histories of locals, and legitimizing their importance. But any list of services I can write out will never fully render the significance of a library to its area.

Going on a library tour, so far, has been a ridiculously joyful and rewarding experience, as well as perplexing. I’m not sure exactly why a few libraries we’ve encountered feel shuttered to outsiders, while most use their local quirks as points of pride to invite everyone into their home. I don’t know why some feel so outrageously good to step into. On the roads between libraries, Michael and I have been watching the ash trees cycle back through their collapse over and over as we pass through places where the Emerald Ash Borer has not fully taken over. We’ve seen and felt stark differences in class and culture that give weight to divisions between hamlets, towns and entire counties. These all feel like living narratives to me.

This is really only the beginning of a sprawling and beautiful part of this project, but I wanted to share a bit with you. by @ripleyfolio

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2 years ago

Reconstructed, Pierced
2024
Welded steel acorn with functional barbell jewelry by @ripleyfolio

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2 years ago