Alana Garrigues

Food for All: August in Tillamook County

Inspired by: Robert Adams, Bulldozed Slash Winslow Homer, Gathering Berries

acrylic ink, graphite, chalk pastel, watercolor, gouache, archival India ink on paper

22″ x 30″

2023

As soon as I saw the photograph by Robert Adams from Tillamook County, the story behind this artwork formed in my mind. Born and raised in Oregon, I have spent many months in Tillamook County, which is located along the Oregon Coast. I’ve watched forest disappear due to fire, storms, landslides, and logging. Every time, one of the first plants to move in is the blackberry bush. Considered by many a pest, I love it for the roadside and trailside snack available the full month of August, along with salal and huckleberry. It’s a true immersive joy to walk and pick berries, alongside the wildlife who depend on it for food. This image is a combination of several places I’ve known in Tillamook County infused together… I’m thinking of a specific cedar, a specific buck, a specific squirrel, a specific beach, a specific bush. They only meet on the page.

@alanaofloveandlight

Alana Garrigues

The Cells Know the Way

watercolor on bristol paper

6″ x 6″ x .75″ (framed), 4″ x 4″ (unframed)

2022

This watercolor piece on paper is created with Daniel Smith Primatek watercolors, made of natural pigments from the earth… soil and mineral mixed with water to represent a cross-section of a tree trunk. Part of the “Mother Tree Holds the Stories” series, the small painting is one of several 4×4″ paintings that explore tree rings and biodiversity, and invite the viewer to consider in quiet reverence our deep connection to those who clean our air, provide shade and beauty, invite play. Installed in a solid wood frame, this can hang on a wall or sit on a shelf.

@alanaofloveandlight

Alana Garrigues

When They Feast, We Eat

Inspired by: Jules Aarons, West End Meat Market Matt Siber, McDonalds Henry George Todd, Study of Strawberries

acrylic gouache on canvas

16″ x 20″

2023

Looking at the FAM artwork, I was struck by how separated the act of eating and feasting was from the environment and the way our food grows. The study of strawberries looked the most wholesome and brightly colored, and I thought of the pollinators and land necessary to grow them. In my own garden, I plant a floral feast to attract and entertain bees and butterflies so I may eat. This is in stark contrast to the cold industrial McDonald’s sign. Butterflies and bees as symbols of migration and workers, “they” is also a political call for equitable human rights.

@alanaofloveandlight

Alana Garrigues

Precedented II

mixed media: acrylic ink, ink, chalk pastel on reclaimed plywood

23.25″ x 24″

Nov. 2021 – Jan. 2022

Precedented II is a tongue-in-cheek title and piece, inspired by a small work of art I created in 2020, the year of ‘unprecedented.’ In both, I was reflecting on the cyclical nature of history, and all of the pandemics, political unrest, civil rights movements and more that the trees have witnessed and we humans are prone to forget. Each ring of a tree reflects a year of life, and in that ring entire histories of air quality, water, soil, heat, and more are written. What else do the trees remember as precedented that we treat as brand new?

@alanaofloveandlight