The practices of Eric William Carroll and Jessica Greenfield both emerge from a genuine curiosity about the natural world embodied through slow processes and sustained attention. In Heartwood, they present their collaborations with the trees of Southern Appalachia. Carroll’s cyanotypes are part of his ongoing Field Recordings project where he explores the ideas of climate anxiety and land stewardship through site-specific photographs and temporary installations along the floodplain in Asheville, NC. The resulting portraits are the visual equivalent of a field recording; abstract yet documentary, ephemeral yet firmly rooted in a specific time and place.

Greenfield presents work from her ongoing Oak Shothole Leafminer series, a collaboration with local oak trees and the tiny shothole leaf miner fly. Every spring the female fly emerges from her larval state with a mouth too small to bite through anything, so she forms a unique relationship with the oak. With her ovipositor, which she will soon use to lay eggs, she pierces the young leaf buds and laps the juice that seeps out. As the leaves grow the pinpricks become a pattern of perfectly formed holes. Greenfield delicately embroiders the leaves to highlight the resilience and creativity of the leafminer. Both artists speak to nature’s resilience in the face of a changing climate and humanity’s entanglement with the natural world.