Seedling

Written By Hannah Spencer

I am the tree and its branches.

I am the leaf and its limbs.

I am the foliage and the fruit.

I am the unborn and the born.

And I am the blatant dormancy I must endure.

I have been swallowed by badger, bear and buffalo,

Walking in the belly of beasts.

I have been swallowed and consumed by fish and frogs and I have been found in the cavernous walls of the whale.

Where their house sized ribs have kept me a prisoner for lifetimes.

Recently, I have been pecked and hijacked by the cranes, traveling north on their many moon migration, only to be defecated out at 30,000 feet.

Falling

Landing on the prairie, plains and what’s left of the glaciers.

Devoured by beetles and rodents looking for their last supper.

Eventually , I am laid to rest under a fallen limb waiting for the rains to wash my body and prepare me for my birthing grounds.

As Winter comes, a blanket of snow is wrapped around me.

All this, just to soften my edges and crack me open so that in the spring I can begin

Again and again and again.

Hannah Spencer

As a child, Spencer spent her summers with her family sailing around Lake George, NY, picking berries, camping, fishing, and bird watching. She remembers fondly, “I have always been in love with the natural world. Those magical experiences have shaped who I am and how I express myself through art. It has given me a passion for the beauty and wonder of nature and a deep gratitude of the vitality for the wild landscapes.”

In her late teens, Spencer migrated west and soon became enraptured with the sage-infused desert canyons and the vastness of the seemingly never-ending sky. She saw a simpler way of life. She believes that decades of the western landscape feeding her its magical power kindled a personal transformation in her. Now living her childhood dream, Spencer is a self-taught woodblock artist and a fly-fishing guide. “I use woodblock to challenge me and my thought process.” She finds that as she carves the wood, she continually reminds herself, “to soften the edges and dark areas, not to draw in every detail. Sometimes it is what you don’t carve or call attention to that has the greatest impact. A lesson in life and how I want to live.”

Her artwork begins out in the field where she sketches her inspired surroundings. Then she transfers the drawings onto a sustainable wood block in reverse. She carefully prepares the woodblock as a relief pattern, cutting away the negative spaces with Japanese hand tools in several sizes. When she is satisfied with the carving, she inks the block and prints it onto paper.

Spencer’s work comes from an old tradition that she deliberately chooses, “I avoid the overt use of modern technology by carving, pressing, and printing in the old- fashioned method…by hand.” She uses oil-based inks and prints onto archival Japanese paper for her black and white images and archival watercolor paper with watercolor paint for her colored images.

Currently, Spencer resides with husband and 9-year-old twins on the banks of the Salmon River in Idaho. She and her family live off grid where they have built a sustainable straw-bale home. They maintain bees, a garden that feeds the family, and pure joy for their surroundings.

https://www.hbsartworks.com
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