Rothshank Roots

2020 Land Research Project Year

#rothshankroots

Our personal creative manifesto includes a commitment to respect and cherish our environment. A global changing climate compels us to ask what we can do. We plan to use this year to deepen our appreciation and understanding of our immediate environment, a wooded and swampy region in Northern Indiana.

At the beginning of 2020 Brooke and I committed to taking a weekly walk thru our 20 acre woods together, with our 3 children.. After completing several collaborative projects over the past years, we setup this project in an effort to learn more about the land and landscape where we live. Previous collaborative projects focused on gratitude and intentional living.

Our commitment was to identify one plant species growing in our woods each week. Some would already be familiar to us, but others were brand new. This was a way to educate ourselves. After selecting the plant, Brooke would complete a line drawing of the plant. I then took each line drawing and converted it into a ceramic decal. Each decal image was applied to a handmade vase glazed with a simple clear celedon glaze. The finished vase serves as a record of each plant we discovered over the course of the year of 2020.

While the year of recording our discoveries is completed, research on our land is ongoing. The natural environment heavily influences the artwork we both create. We're continuing to research the history of ownership of our land, knowing we will eventually trace the history back to when the land was used by the Potawatomi Nation. We continue to be inspired by the land, drawing inspiration from the leaves, flowers, animals, and landscape in general.

Canada Goldenrod
Yellow Indiangrass
Stiff Goldenrod
Norway Spruce
Eastern White Pine
Sweetgum
Ash bark
Big Red stem moss
Pear
Silver Maple
Bracket Fungus
Black Walnut
Speedwell
Birch bark
Cutleaf Toothwort
Yellow Trout Lilly
Ramp
Roundlobe Hepatica
Harbinger of Spring
Hairy Bittercress
Dutchman's Britches
Daffodil
Trillium
Rue Anemone
Virginia Spring Beauty
Purple Dead Nettle
Wild Blue Phlox
Garlic Mustard
Cleavers
May Apple
Tulip Tree
Multiflora Rose
Peruvian Daisy
Pheasant Back
Oriental Lady's Thumb
Beggar's Lice
Chicken of the Woods
Red Clover
Bird's Foot Trefoil
Paw Paw
Tall Blue Lettuce
Morel
Violet
Black Raspberry
Oak
Canada Wild Rye
Polyporaceae
Pokeweed
Yellow Giant Hyssop
Tall Flat Sedge
Black Snake Root
Chickweed

We recognize that the land we live on is the ancestral home of the Potawatomi Nation. The Potawatomi people were stewards of this land for many generations leading up to an unjust treaty in 1828 when the land was taken by the United States Government and the Potawatomi were forcefully removed and relocated.

Learning about the historical, botanical, and ecological roots of this land is at the heart of our project for the year. Documenting the plants that grow here is our way to honor the natural environment in its present state. We hope by researching the past and engaging the present in this place that we will be able to better understand how to care for its future.