Emily Poole, a Eugene-based artist, has released her first solo book: Cascade of Life: An Artist’s Seasonal Guide to the Wild Northwest.
It takes readers through the rhythms of the four seasons in four landscapes of the Northwest — the coast, the lowlands, the mountains, and the drylands. Part field guide, part journal, the book explores Cascadia’s landscapes and the species that define them.
KLCC's Love Cross invited Emily to the KLCC studio to learn more about her work. She began by asking her about the inspiration behind the project.
Emily Poole: I got this opportunity to make this book and I was lucky enough to be approached by an editor at Mountaineers Books asking if there was a project I wanted to do, which is really a dream situation that doesn't happen very often. And I was thinking about what kind of book I would be qualified to write because I'm primarily an artist and you know, a scientist would be more qualified to write a field guide or something like that. So I wanted to make something that would be a book only I could make. So making an artist field guide and talking about what it's like to experience the world as an artist and look at things in terms of color and sensory input and shape and fall in love with the natural world as a visual person, on a personal level, felt like the book that only I could write. So that's kind of why I took that angle and I wanted to, as you say, kind of have it all and include all of these things that I'm passionate about in the book.
Love Cross: As you introduce this book, you point out that, quote, "becoming a naturalist is surprisingly similar to finding your voice as an artist." How would you describe what it really means to be a naturalist?
Poole: Being a naturalist is all about following a thread of observation and following a thread of passion, and just really being curious and being open to new ideas and exploring new concepts. And being an artist is really similar in that way. And something I love about being an artist and about being a naturalist, like I go out in the field with scientists, and they're pointing things out to me that I've never looked at, even though I've been in that place a million times. And then I go out with people and I'm pointing out things to them that they've never seen before. So we're all looking at landscapes, but totally different things are jumping out to us based on our worldview, and that is exactly the same as being an artist.
Cross: You call the changing seasons the wheel of the year. How did looking at the living beings in four landscapes across the Northwest through four seasons help you connect to that wheel?
Poole: I built it that way because I kind of wanted to write the book that I wished I had had when I moved to the Northwest. Because coming to a new place and trying to connect with the ecology is really tricky. If you don't already know what you're looking for, you might do something like open a field guide, but field guides are kind of hard to use. If, again, you don't already know what you're looking for, they won't tell you where and when to find things. So I really wanted to structure the book around like, you can come to a place and a time, and here are things you can look for, just to give people an access point into the natural world. And that was like what I wish I had had when I first started exploring the ecology of a new place when I landed here.
Cross: You write about your love for foraging and you describe the bounty of berries and mushrooms that can be found across the landscapes of the Northwest. You also include some recipes that include ingredients like salal and thimbleberries, and even a recipe for candied matsutake ice cream, which I had never heard of before. How does foraging allow you to connect to the natural world in a more meaningful way?
Poole: Foraging is such a great activity because it's very seasonally oriented. It asks you to get really familiar with species and telling the difference between different species, and it's a very hands-on activity. I think foraging is one of the things that makes you feel the most like you're a part of the landscape and you're a participant and you're creating some kind of bond with it. And it also, working really hard to forage and, you know, bring home—I just carried like 10 pounds of mushrooms, like seven miles out of a ravine the other day. Those mushrooms are now very valuable to me (chuckling). Working really hard to find these things and know about them, and then bring them home and cook with them, just really makes you appreciate the value of what other species have to offer us. Foraging isn't the only thing that I include in the book because I also want to talk about how we can give back, not just how we can take. So I also have stewardship activities like trash cleanup and removing invasive species and things like that, because taking isn't the only way that we can see ourselves in relation to other species.
Cross: Speaking of foraging, in the coast in the fall section, you highlight the evergreen huckleberry, which is different from what we find sun-ripened at higher elevations in the summer. Can you read us a passage from that entry?
Poole: "This plant's berries may begin to form in summer, but they often don't ripen until nearly November and will stay stubbornly on the bush for months afterward. Sample one in January and you will taste the bittersweet complexity of a berry that has survived the winter solstice and known the dark."
Cross: I'm not sure I'll ever look at an evergreen huckleberry the same again. It is so vivid. It's a very different way of approaching nature's bounty.
Poole: Yeah, that's one of my favorite things to do is draw attention to species that folks don't notice or take for granted or only see in one way and try to show them the many layers of beauty that exist. So, getting people to see a species that's around all the time in a new light is something I really love to do.
"Be curious and ask questions... go outside and look at something and think, 'Oh, what's that? Where did it come from?' Curiosity is really just the main thing—go out and have a bunch of questions."
- Emily Poole's advice for becoming a naturalist
Cross: You've also just published The Nature Notebook: Observing the Seasons Around You. I definitely see this as a companion piece to Cascade of Life. Can you tell us about that project?
Poole: The concept of The Nature Notebook actually spun out of the concept of Cascade of Life because it's another thing that I wish I'd had. It's a phenology journal, and phenology is the study of natural phenomena through time, through the seasons. And the way it's set up is that it has three years' worth of columns for observations that are side by side, so you can make observations about what you're seeing each day, and then it's compared to the other previous years. So as you're keeping this journal over a three-year period, you can see how observations are changing from year to year—when things are blooming, when things are fruiting—and you can see, "oh, it came earlier last year, oh, that was different this year." And it's a great way to compare your observations over a length of time.
Cross: That has me thinking about how in Cascade of Life, the notes for the Oregon white oak explain how every few years the tree will produce massive quantities of acorns—a mast year—and that floods the local ecosystem. So squirrels, deer, birds, insects can't possibly eat all of those that are produced during that time. That leaves a surplus of uneaten acorns on the ground to sprout and then grow into new trees- it's a way to ensure propagation. So, using a journal like The Nature Notebook can help you recognize those patterns and make sense of what's going on, right?
Poole: Yeah, exactly. That's true of certain flowers as well. I talk about bear grass in the book, which has these mass blooms about every seven years, and that's something I track in my journal is where bear grass does these blooms and what year so that I can remember when to come back and check the fields again for another big bloom. So it's really fun to keep track of those things and then you can actually maybe even anticipate what's going to happen, which is fun.
Cross: I think that this book sets someone up well if they want to become a naturalist. But what advice would you have if someone is listening to this and thinking, you know, I really want to start paying attention to the things that are around me in my everyday life?
Poole: My advice would be to be curious and ask questions. I really like to bring a field journal into the field with me and just write down all of my questions and then come home and try to find the answers. That's been most of how I found out everything I know, is just by going outside and looking at something and thinking, "Oh, what's that? Where did it come from? When does it bloom? When does it do this?" And then coming home, looking up all the answers, and then, of course, more questions come up from that, and then I just keep following that thread and suddenly I have all of this knowledge, which is really thrilling. So, I think curiosity is really just the main thing to hold in your mind—is go out and have a bunch of questions.
Cross: And I understand that some of the original artwork from Cascade of Life is on display at Tsunami Books. Can you tell us about that?
Poole: Yeah, I have, I think around 50 or so paintings from the book. I did almost 200 for the book, and around 50 or so are currently on display at Tsunami.
Cross: Emily, it's been a real pleasure talking to you today about this book and to really get inspired to learn more about and appreciate the natural world that is really all around us in the Northwest. I think you are making gift giving for the holiday season a lot easier for a lot of people in the Northwest, so thank you so much.
Poole: Thank you so much for having me.
