Kirk Crippens & Gretchen LeMaistre: Live Burls

Kirk Crippens & Gretchen LeMaistre: Live Burls

California’s redwood trees are a national treasure and a living witness to our past. The largest of California’s redwoods grow in excess of two hundred and fifty feet tall and are capable of living for millennia. In recent years, an alarming number of old-growth trees residing in Redwood National Park have been shorn of the gnarled protrusions that grow on their trunks, called burls. Essential to the tree’s reproduction process, these burls are illegally cut by poachers who seek to sell the distinctive wood on the black market for use in fine woodworking. Concerned over the welfare of the iconic old-growth trees, photographers Kirk Crippens and Gretchen LeMaistre work with park rangers to access and photograph each damaged tree for their series, Live Burls. Working with a traditional 8x10 inch analog view camera, the artists produce breathtaking images that recall the majestic beauty of the ancient trees while drawing attention to the environmental injustice at hand.

Kirk Crippens and Gretchen LeMaistre are San Francisco-based artists. Successful in their respective individual careers as photographers, Crippens and LeMaistre have also worked together on collaborative projects for over a decade. Images from their Live Burls project have been featured by numerous publications, including Time, Hyperallergic, and Photo District News. Live Burls images are held in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston; and RayKo Photo Center in San Francisco. Live Burls has been exhibited nationally and internationally at Datz Museum of Art in Gwangju, South Korea; Schilt Gallery in Amsterdam, Holland; Fotofest International in Houston; and Candela Gallery in Richmond, Virginia.

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