Woven throughout artwork for Field Song and Selected Ecotones is an insignia inspired by the Japanese mon tradition, which I designed in collaboration with Dan MacDonald (who also did the artwork for Field Song).
In the Japanese tradition, mon are used for identification and decoration. They originated in the Heian period, which also spawned the great imperial anthologies of waka poetry and Genji Monogatari, the first novel. I was drawn to mon for much the same reasons as I am drawn to those great works of literature: all make use of the tapestry of plants and animals woven through the changing seasons as their main imagery. The shapes and characters of our native plants are so beautiful and varied, and this is but one way that they can be woven together. By creating an aesthetic that draws from the beauty of our native ecology, we deepen our relationship and understanding, inviting these beings into our lives and imaginations.
The insignia consists of motifs from 4 plants: bloodroot, bluestem, bur oak, and milkweed. The outer frame is a bloodroot leaf. The inner 5-pointed design is the shape of a milkweed flower, with bur oak leaks as the petals. The 3-part symbols in between the oak leaves are bluestem inflorescences.
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