One of the great pleasures of wandering the Shawangunk Ridge is the profusion of tree trunks, branches and roots that are forced into grotesque and fanciful shapes by their inhospitably rocky habitat. You might descry an animal form, a human face, a gargoyle amidst their hollows, twists and bumps; or you might just admire their dogged determination to survive, to traverse a crevice or the face of a boulder in order to reach life-giving groundwater or sunshine.
Nora Scarlett, a serious studio photographer whose portfolio includes work as a photo spotter for the great Irving Penn – not to mention major advertising agency assignments on campaigns for such high-ticket clients as American Express, the Gap, Reebok, Kodak, IBM, Hershey’s and Seagram’s – is now based in New Paltz. While on a hike in the Shawangunks more than a decade ago, she writes, “I was captivated by a tree that appeared to be kissing a boulder.” That was the inspiration for Scarlett’s first serious departure from studio work: a series of large-format photos that she called “Trunks of the Gunks.” The series was first exhibited at the Unison Arts Center gallery in April 2012.
“I looked for intriguing formations, humorous characteristics, improbable locations, surprising shapes and other wondrous growths,” Scarlett writes. “I became awed at scene after scene displaying how life adapts to adversity and how it succeeds in astonishing ways. Tiny seedlings emerge from small cracks in rock, sprouting a handful of needles or tender leaves, knowing only to keep trying to grow. Enormous hemlocks hang off ledges, improbably rooted to something, looking as if they shouldn’t be upright, and yet…there they are.”
Now the expanded collection has been published in book form by Black Dome Press. Described as “a visual odyssey through the Shawangunk Mountains in search of the unexpected,” Trunks of the Gunks runs 112 pages and features 97 full-color photographs in 9.25-by-9.25-inch hardcover format, with a foreword by Dr. Paul C. Huth of the Mohonk Preserve’s Daniel Smiley Research Center. Priced at $30, the volume is available at Inquiring Minds and other bookstores throughout the region. To view selected images or find out more, visit www.norascarlett.com.
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