"And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world ...without me in it."
-The Lovely Bones
-The Lovely Bones
The brief had us breaking down the words 'home' and 'belonging' to study how they would extend to a lot more than just a place someone resides in. In addition to this, our piece had to address this from a non-human centric perspective.
My research included TED talks and articles about vulnerability, belonging and how they tied together with trees (my selected species).
My research included TED talks and articles about vulnerability, belonging and how they tied together with trees (my selected species).
It is utterly important to look at things from various perspectives and critically think about the choices we make every day, be it about our need for approval or a constant validation of our self—worth. Michael Pollan’s theory of manipulative plants is fun to imagine, yet it also carries a very potent message about there being countless more explanations apart from the ones revolving around us.
On the same line, but with a different tone comes in the scientific findings of Suzanne Simard, a forester who along with her colleagues carried out experiments on the interior Douglas-fir forests of North America and found that an immense network of mycorrhiza (mycelium) help trees pass important chemicals and messages to the trees around them. This included water, nutrients, carbon, defense signals and a lot more. The mother (hub) tree was seen to nourish her seedlings through this fungal web. Seedlings with these networks were associated with rapid increases in net photosynthetic rates, shoot and root growth and overall survival and productivity. In essence, they found that trees talk! While we use language as a tool, they use biochemistry. They aren’t as passive as we think them to be. They use a far superior form of technology and communication. They are social creatures that thrive on the connections to their kin.
Ideation
-schrodinger’s cat – when in the box, the cat is both dead and alive. But when opened and observed, it is either dead or alive. The fact that you see it makes it a reality and you could see either of the two possibilities. We have been conditioned to see only one reality of trees. What if there is another that is yet to be seen?
-they have a very strong connection. If one goes, the loss is rippled over to the rest. They belong to the web. They are never alone. They belong to the rest. They belong to the mother tree.
-they embody everything around them. Connections. The mother tree embodies the little ones and vice versa. They are seen as two different entities as we see ourselves that way. What if it isn't? What if they are all a single being? Carbon goes there, and so ‘there’ becomes ‘here’. You becomes me.
-trees see colours. The ones that aren’t part of the ‘us’ and are in denial of their connection with the rest, see only the colours that are reflected by objects and not the rest of the spectrum that are absorbed. A story with visual aspects like this would help show the transition from ‘me’ to ‘us’.
-home for trees would be everything around them. Home for trees would be their connections. Makes them from 'me' to ‘us’.
-home to trees could be a world without them as individuals. But a world with just one. A world with all. But still a world of their own. Goes also with Aldo Leopold's rule of land ethics. More for us doesn't have to mean we'd diminish the earth’s resources.
-home to the seedling could be his mother.
-they have a very strong connection. If one goes, the loss is rippled over to the rest. They belong to the web. They are never alone. They belong to the rest. They belong to the mother tree.
-they embody everything around them. Connections. The mother tree embodies the little ones and vice versa. They are seen as two different entities as we see ourselves that way. What if it isn't? What if they are all a single being? Carbon goes there, and so ‘there’ becomes ‘here’. You becomes me.
-trees see colours. The ones that aren’t part of the ‘us’ and are in denial of their connection with the rest, see only the colours that are reflected by objects and not the rest of the spectrum that are absorbed. A story with visual aspects like this would help show the transition from ‘me’ to ‘us’.
-home for trees would be everything around them. Home for trees would be their connections. Makes them from 'me' to ‘us’.
-home to trees could be a world without them as individuals. But a world with just one. A world with all. But still a world of their own. Goes also with Aldo Leopold's rule of land ethics. More for us doesn't have to mean we'd diminish the earth’s resources.
-home to the seedling could be his mother.
Storyline
I knew I’d have three main characters – the seedling, the fungus and the mother (hub) tree. I wanted it to be a conversation between the two. The seedling is young and close-minded and through his conversation with his mother, he gains insight and becomes a part of the ‘us’. After a few drafts, I made one where the seedling is in an isolated, enclosed space (metaphorically significant) where it keeps getting nutrients and water from an unknown source, one that cares for him and yet is unacknowledged by him (here comes in the hole in the wall!). And as he enters the tunnel (which is the mycelium) he starts to grow and gain insight. He starts to feel at home when he discovers the hidden network of trees and loves being a part of something bigger than himself. It ultimately would end with him meeting his mother, almost a sign of him having gained wisdom. He becomes her as if they were one from the start. He sees his old self through their eyes, a sapling that has torn out of its burrow and made it to the surface. A sapling that has grown ‘taller’.
The primary target audience would be adolescents as they are more open to new perspectives, and. the concept, style and action in the illustrations might most likely appeal to them rather than a comparatively younger audience. The story is based around scientific findings, hence the novel tends to have the added element of learning. Also, as it is mostly bereft of text, it solves the problem of language too.
Character sketches and a few inked frames
I had trouble with the panel layout and found it wasn’t easily readable. I tried fixing this by having the text and paint run from panel to the next to facilitate easier eye movement across the pages. Another hurdle I faced was the colours of the characters after I printed them. They were overly saturated and dark. I printed out various versions of these as can be seen in the picture below and finally settled on the lightest one
Colour testing
Final book
All I hope at the end of this project, is for people to remember the message and this experience the next time they come across trees -- the message of all of us being part of the same fabric, and it being alright to take a moment and appreciate the potential we have within us to change our lens about ordinary things we see every day, and have them become our miracles.
