Image from Buster Simpson.com
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One of Buster’s most provocative works, which has also come to be one of his most successful, does an excellent job of defining the pursuits of this artist. This work is called Host Analog. It is a sculpture on the grounds of the Oregon State Convention Center made up of a decayed log that the artist brought into the city and cut into several slices. These slices were then arranged in a slightly bowed shape and a hydraulic system was set up in order to keep the log damp enough for other trees to start growing out of it. This type of log is called a nurse log, which occur quite frequently in the Pacific North West forests around where Simpson currently operates. The moisture content of a decaying log, which stimulates the growth of mycorrhizal fungus, is one of the many factors that go in to stimulating the growth of new trees on nurse logs (Oakes 120). Learning this was one of the motivators of my own research into the majesty of nurse logs, the findings of which are recounted under the tab “nurse logs.”
The beauty of this idea, a simple one which will nonetheless will have a great impact, as many people will pass by it over the sculpture’s potential lifetime of several hundred years, is best described in the words of Baile Oaks in the book Sculpting with the Environment: “Host Analog…bring[s] environmental issues to the urban context: natural phenomena which city populations are detached from and often indifferent to yet dependent upon (120).” In addition, the work causes a disruption of the natural rigidity of the city (120). Any time a routine is altered, or in this case, a static array of buildings is broken up by a piece of rotting wood, people will take a moment to break out of their normal thought processes. I believe this to be one of Simpson’s foremost goals as an artist- to get people to consider what narratives are taking place in the world beyond their own lives.
Besides serving in this role, as a piece of art with a clear message that leads to deeper thoughts on humanity’s debt to the earth upon further contemplation, the piece also has another powerful message in my mind. Through the rapid changes and urbanization that took place following the Industrial Revolution, we as a society have made huge changes on the earth. Art of this particular bent is a way of reconnecting this “gulf between natural and urban ecosystems” (Matilsky 4). Repairing those changes will be a gradual process. This project, like so many others that Buster Simpson had done, emphasize first and foremost that healing and significant change will take place gradually. If I were to pass by this work of art everyday, my hope in this gradual process of renewal would be stirred. As Matilsky has written “the centuries that it will take to establish a forest contrast sharply with the minutes involved in cutting down a tree (96).” Yet here I would be able to witness these new trees growing, and of all places growing in a harsh urban environment.