When Forest Woodward takes a step back and looks at his creative life so far, he sees one big swing of a pendulum.
“In the last five years,” he said, “my art practice has shifted back, kind of more toward where I started.”
In order to tell the story, we must go back, too. Woodward — a photographer and writer — grew up in the mountains of western North Carolina, “at the end of a dirt road in a holler west of Asheville,” he said. Life was “pretty free range” there; he was homeschooled, and spent a lot of time running around the woods with his siblings.
Then, when Woodward was 12, his family moved to Washington state, and into a self-sufficient community of around 100 people who lived in an area with no road access and a one-room schoolhouse.
“Those ways of growing up in rural areas really informed my practice,” he said.
Cue the pendulum swing: In his late teens, 20s and early 30s, Woodward lived and studied in good-sized college towns on both sides of the country, and even spent seven years working as a commercial photographer and filmmaker and lived for seven years in America’s largest metropolis, New York City. Along the way, his work was published in well-known publications like Esquire, Outside, Garden & Gun, National Geographic Adventure and TIME.
And then the pendulum swung back. In recent years, Woodward has renewed his interest in landscapes and how human communities live in relation to the natural world, primarily in rural and wilderness areas. He combines analog photographic processes, hand-bound artist books and land-based installations to explore the ideas of permanence, control and the ways in which humans shape and are shaped by places we live, work and play.
He has chosen to engage with photography in a more material way by using analog processes in the darkroom.
“After spending a lot of years working on the computer, I just find that analog processes really help me to slow down and be in contact with the materials,” he said. “I want that relationship to be slower and quieter. That’s true for photo prints and for making books, and also just for my time. I like to work in the field and walk and have immersive stretches of time in the landscape to listen and make work.”
During his Pine Meadow Ranch Center for Arts & Agriculture residency, Woodward hopes to explore the theme, Adaptation, by exploring the way climate change affects our seasons and how people are adapting to those effects — trying to find beauty and joy in something that feels so far beyond their control.
He is also looking forward to getting his hands dirty.
“In my last 10 years of working with farming and ranching communities, so much of what we see is from the ground level up,” Woodward said. “So I’m really interested in trying to get into the soil and understand — through conversations and collaborations with other artists and researchers and people in the community — a bit more about the landscape there, and to really think about what’s below the surface.”
Forest Woodward will lead a workshop, “Gather & Print: Exploring Nature and Lumen Printing,” on Saturday, May 30 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at The Ranch. Participants will learn about historical and contemporary examples of lumen printing, take a short nature walk to gather materials and conclude by creating their own ephemeral prints. Registration costs $80, and the workshop is open to all ages and skill levels.
You can also hear from Forest at the Studio Tour alongside textile artist Vic Spindler-Fox and mixed media artist Lynette K. Henderson on Thursday, May 28 from 5-6:30 p.m.
