Pete Yahnke

The image I created for this portfolio addresses the overarching theme of resource extraction focused on the region I inhabited when making this print, the Pacific Northwest. For years I worked as a deconstructionist (dismantling buildings with a crowbar for salvage, as opposed to a bulldozer for the landfill) in the northwest and fell in love with the beautiful wood that we would pull out of the old houses. It was hard to imagine the size and age of some of the trees these boards came from. Spend some time in the old warehouses (now lofts) of Portland and you will see beams of solid lumber 30 feet long by 2 feet by 3 feet or bigger. Luckily there are still a few places (small places indeed) where the old growth trees still stand. These places exist because many people fought hard and are still fighting hard to protect them, one group working to protect some of these areas in Oregon is BARK. While not specifically a collaboration with BARK it was created with such an organization in mind. Discussions and field trips into the forest with members of BARK lead to this print and a larger collaboration with Indonesian artists Taring Padi and Justseeds artists. I feel like too often we city people take for granted all that surrounds us, we either ignore or are unaware of the fact that our cities are built on resources pulled from the earth. Whether dug out of a mile deep hole in the earth, clear cut off the side of a mountain, or taken off with the entire mountain top itself, we need to realize that we are cutting off the branch we sit upon, high up in the trees.