My drift project

I took the pictures below on my drift. I found a lot of the murals in back ally ways, while I found most of the graffiti on the main streets. When I first started my drift, I missed a lot of the graffiti and artwork because I never really looked for it before.

Tree Service by Chester Arnold

Shane Kinner

Tree Service by Chester Arnold

Chester Arnold’s Tree Service is a painting of a group of men splitting, stacking, and hauling firewood.  The painting at first looks like it is simply a few guys doing back-breaking labor.  Then in the background, you notice that there is a city with a lot of pollution in the background.  The land all around is only tree stumps and no trees.  The land is completely vacant and you see a pile of something burning in the background also.

Tree Service revolves around Chester Arnold’s idea that the earth won’t be able to sustain very much more.  The painting was created during a time when Chester Arnold’s home was heated only by firewood.  It shows that they have already cleared the land many miles away from this big city and need to keep clearing land if the humans want to stay warm.  It also shows the harsh labor that people are willing to do in order to keep their families warm.  This is probably the same labor he went through to cut wood to keep his home warm.

I believe that Chester Arnold’s intent of this painting is to show the hard work that goes into splitting firewood and to also show that the earth is rapidly running out of resources.  One day that area might run out of trees to cut down, and right now nobody is thinking of that.  Most people just turn up their thermostat when they get cold, and they don’t even think about how much energy it takes to get that heat into their homes. 

People don’t realize how difficult splitting wood actually is.  I have been a position where I had to split wood for a living.  It was hard work, I did it all by hand just like the painting Tree Service shows.  I think that is why I like this painting, because I can relate to it.  I like the way Chester Arnold shows both sides of the story, from the side of the men that don’t have enough money to turn on the thermostat, and the side of the suffering environment.  The amount of pollution in the city makes me think that there are still factories working and cars driving, so I think that this is another situation where the rich get richer and the poor have to go out and work all day just to keep their families warm.

I like Tree Service because it seems to be fairly straight forward.  It seems like it is layered and each layer has a completely different meaning.  At first you see low income, hard working men, then you see the suffering environment, then you see a city that is overusing resources.  It is a very detailed paining.  I like the way that it shows every detail from the twigs on the ground to the scuffs on the man’s boots.