Catherine Forster

The poem “Hamatreya” by Ralph Waldo Emerson galvanized Salt and Vinegar and the previous video project, MINE-?. Like the poem, the paintings and the video are about man’s claim to earth and Earth’s retort to this claim. The paintings explore the moment when nature and man collide.

Salt and Vinegar is a work in progress inspired by the clearing of forested land for residential construction. During the early 1900s, the original twenty-acre plot was cleared for farming. Its owners founded a Christmas tree and holly farm, an orchard, and pasture. Around the mid-1900s, the farm ceased agricultural production. In the absence of human habitation, the land returned to forest. Nature returned, and in time, so did man: around 2000, the property was divided into four five-acre plots. Trees that survived the seven-year Christmas tree harvest sixty years ago, did not survive the onslaught of chainsaws and earth moving equipment. A coyote den was excavated along with the trees, as well as the habitats of small mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and insects and pollinators. But I have to wonder, when will nature reclaim these grounds? I don’t believe she’s done.