Story Info
Story Info
Joy Kreves
Titusville, NJ
2021
Type of Wounded Place
Story & Experience
Why I chose the location: I frequently drive along River Rd to get to towns north of me. Every year trees along the road are trimmed back for the power lines. THIS year, an entire stretch about 1/2 mile long were lopped approximately in half. I felt horrified by their mutilation.
Story: I noticed that the trees were mutilated in early spring, and took the photo, intending to come back to a small pull-out to create my GEE Act of Beauty. But when I went there on 6/12, there were already a few cars there with people fishing in the canal. So I came back to my house. I found a pile of drawing paper scraps that my daughter had left on the deck where she had been cutting something. I decided to use those to create my GEE bird for the Mutilated Trees, after all, paper is made from trees. I felt good about transforming the unwanted scraps into something meaningful. The scraps were very angular and sharp-looking. I assembled them into a bird-like shape and drew the eye, as I thought about all the birds that would NOT be able to nest in those trees this year. But the remaining parts of those trees have leafed out, amazingly. Perhaps there will even still be some nests there. My husband’s death last October has left me feeling like my own life has been mutilated, so I could really relate to those trees having to continue living with their severe wounds. I realized that their root systems were still intact, though, as are my own. This made me feel how resilient beings are and gave me hope that my mutilated life can continue to be worthwhile.
Why I chose the location: I frequently drive along River Rd to get to towns north of me. Every year trees along the road are trimmed back for the power lines. THIS year, an entire stretch about 1/2 mile long were lopped approximately in half. I felt horrified by their mutilation.
Titusville, NJ
Image Credit:
- Kreves GEEbird2021: Joy Kreves
RECENT STORIES
Remembrance Day for Lost Species in Helsinki 2023
On November 30th, there was first a session organized by the Finnish social and health sector project about eco-anxiety and eco-emotions (www.ymparistoahdistus.fi). This “morning coffee roundtable”, a hybrid event, focused this time on ecological grief [...]
Ashdown Forest
Ashdown Forest is an area of natural beauty in West Sussex, England. It is also one of the very few remaining areas of extensive lowland heath left in Europe. This rare and threatened landscape is [...]