- Kathleen Scavone
- Posted On
The Living Landscape: Taking a texture walk
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – After the recent rains, on a blessedly damp and shiver-inducing gray day the landscape's colors and textures, painted by the grandest environmental designer of all, take on a different look.
We are always cognizant of the texture, or tactile quality of everyday objects with which we are in contact, even if it is at the periphery of our senses – the smooth sheets of a bed, soft fleece of a well-loved sweater, or the comforting and creamy texture of a bowl of hot oatmeal.
Looking out the window the layers of texture in the just-fallen leaves and the tree's gnarly bark can be seen.
Taking a walk along Cache Creek the waterscape of the creekbed appears to take on a newly-textured look, since the recent rain has rearranged it.
The demure pools in the creek soon become outrageous after the rain's redesign. The harmonizing of water's abundant flow now creates a new story to “read” in nature, and is enhanced by these forces in the natural world.
Next to the creek, where I stroll, is a level trail that consists of soil's organic material, that of decayed plants and animals, chipped rock and mineral fragments that formed over the millennia. Now this trail demonstrates a new and slightly different topography with a range of textures.
If you consider just one small square of soil, maybe just outside your door, it is almost mind-boggling to think about the layers that lie beneath our feet.
From the organic or humus layer of a plants remnants derived from a tree – fall's leaves and twigs – then next, the relatively thin layer, possibly 5 inches deep, down to the subsoil beneath that, with its iron, clay and additional organic matter. Then, delving deeper, the “parent layer” of hefty rocks, and on down several feet to the bedrock beneath our feet – that huge heap of rock can be found.
That is a lot of texture-inducing material.
Nature's landscape design – in its leaves and bark and waving grasses – does on a large scale what a good landscape designer tries to achieve on a smaller scale around a home or in a garden.
Textural contrasts play a part in both, as you perceive leaves of differing sizes, shapes and surface feel. The contrast of coarse tree bark overlaid with cotton-soft mosses seem to be tricks to elevate our awareness of what we are viewing.
The varying textural contrasts relate to both how a plant feels, i.e., smooth, abrasive, or rough, or it can refer to how plants look as they are juxtaposed in the wild.
In other words, sometimes we are drawn to these contrasts in texture because of the objects' properties of color, or its size. The plants' wispy foliage or its coarse leaves create other nuances of texture.
To delve further into nature's nuances we might consider the plant's scent as part of its textural makeup.
The fine fragrance of pine may initially draw you in, then on closer observation you note the subtle changes which have occurred since it grew new and feathery soft needles.
Looking closer you see the bark has so many hues that combine to make up the trunk's unique grainy covering.
You might ascertain the proximity of a California bay laurel tree by its sharp, fresh scent and again at further notice, as it draws you nearer you ascertain the miniscule spheres of its fruit, the olive-colored bay balls.
Take a texture walk and consider all of the surfaces around you, using your eye to sense color and grain of the scenery nearby.
You may want to write about them, sketch some or simply wander and enjoy!
Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is a retired educator, potter, freelance writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.”