Tree Drawing: I Stand Where a Bear Stood Recently, Clawing This Tree, 2010Pen, pencil, marker on paper
14 1/2 × 11 1/2 × 1 3/4 in.
Simone Forti’s Tree Drawing: I Stand Where a Bear Stood Recently, Clawing This Tree (2010) is part of a larger body of bear drawings. In a short essay written in 2016 for TheBrooklyn Rail, Forti reflects on becoming lost in the Vermont woods where she needed to create a nest of boughs under a tree settle through the night until daybreak. The experience, she recalls, sharpened her sense of vulnerability and connection to the animal world. For her, bears embody strength, instinct, and deep attunement to the land—qualities with which Forti has engaged for decades through movement. Standing where a bear had clawed a tree, she aligns her body with its trace, underscoring how humans and animals share a fragile, intertwined ecology.