“Inspired by Trees: An Exhibition of Art and Poetry” opened June 6 at the Wildling Art Museum in Los Olivos. The exhibition will feature both images of trees in the form of paintings, drawings, prints and photographs, and poetry that will be presented in the galleries alongside the visual art.

Furthering the Museum’s mission to stimulate the appreciation of America’ wilderness, the “Trees” exhibition invited the visitor to contemplate not only the beauty of trees, but their symbolic power and cultural significance.

The exhibition presented a broad spectrum of art styles from Tonalism to Conceptualism and poetry that spans much of the 20th century. According to Penny Knowles, the Wildling’s director and one of the curators for the exhibition, “the inspiration behind the show was the desire to celebrate trees, as we celebrated the wild horse in the exhibition 'Unbridled Beauty' last summer.” The other curators are Vail Dinkins, PhD, member of the English Department faculties at the University of California at Santa Barbara and Santa Barbara City College, who selected the poetry, and Joseph Knowles, local artist.

The poems included Robert Frost’s “In Hardwood Groves,” A.E. Houseman’s, “Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now,” Mary Oliver’s “Fletcher Oak,” May Sarton’s “Old Trees,” and Gary Snyder’s “Pine Tree Tops” and more than a dozen others.

“We have been lucky to find wonderful art work to complement these poems, paintings by Henry Chapman Ford, Douglass Parshall, William Wendt, Franz Bischoff, Edgar Payne, Fernand Lungren, and Luigi Lucioni N.A., as well as prints by two great etchers of trees, Mildred Bryant Brooks and Roi Partridge, and photographs by Edward Curtis, Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter. Images by contemporary women artists Eve Sonneman, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Ines Roberts, and Susan Jorgensen, balance those of the old masters.”

One of the artists, Helen Loggie N.A. (1895-1976) whose small pencil drawing “Twisted Cedar, 1930” was one of the gems of the exhibition, expressed her belief in an appropriately poetic way: “Underneath all surface harmonies and discords, there flows in nature… the rhythm of the universe. It must exist from the deepest root to the topmost needle.”

The exhibition, which was accompanied by an illustrated brochure, continued through September 12. Summer programming in connection with the exhibition included a poetry reading, lectures, and workshops.