Planting by the book – after John Stirling-Maxwell – consists of a portfolio, a photograph and a chart of full stops extracted from three texts on trees1. The work is intended as a proposition for the positioning and planting of trees in the landscape. It is a response to Sir John Stirling Maxwell’s passion for forestry. In this version, however, it becomes a schema for the placement of a group of jet spheres on the lawn at the back of Pollock House – jet, like coal, being wood in a fossilized form.
1. The texts referred to are as follows: Robert Graves, ‘The Tree Alphabet’ in The White Goddess; Fiona Stafford, ‘Buds, Bark and a Golden Bough’ in The Long, Long Life of Trees; and Jim Crumley, ‘The Great Woods’ in his book The Great Wood on Scotland’s woodlands.