Ash Forest Project

We are writer Gabriel Popkin and photographer Leslie Brice of Mount Rainier, Maryland, and we're launching an effort to bring attention to one of the major environmental challenges facing our part of the world. A few years ago, we were paddling on one of our favorite local waterways and were shocked to come across an expanse of dead trees. We did some research and started talking to scientists, and we learned that a tiny insect, the emerald ash borer, is devastating a critical ecosystem of wetland forests throughout our region. This winter, we published a photo essay in the New York Times.

In early 2022, we launched a fundraiser to take this project to the next level and create an exhibition of photographs and other media. We printed photos on archival matte paper, metal and, for the largest-scale photographs, archival photomural fabric. We partnered with a Mount Rainier-based artist to print the paper and fabric photographs, and with a local drone photographer for stunning aerial imagery.

We shared our work with the DC-area community this fall at Joe's Movement Emporium in Mount Rainier, Maryland. Through this exhibition, we hoped to bring attention to the plight of the ash tree and provide a venue for us all to think about how we can become stewards of the wild and natural places around us. We also produced a virtual version of the exhibit that can be viewed online from anywhere.

The next stage of our project will take us farther afield. We will travel to the upper Midwest, upstate New York and New England to meet with basket makers who use ash trees in their work. Native artisans of these regions have long practiced a form of basketry that relies solely on black ash trees, which grow in vast northern wetlands and swamps similar to the green and pumpkin ash wetlands of the Mid-Atlantic. You can see one example of black ash basketry here.

While many black ash swamps are still intact for now, the emerald ash borer has arrived on their doorstep and will soon start killing trees. We want to document this unique, Indigenous American art form while it is still thriving, and hear from basket makers who are looking for ways to keep it alive in the face of an existential threat.

Please visit our website to learn more about our project and sign up to receive updates.

Donations to this fundraiser are, unfortunately, not tax deductible, and donors will not receive any reward for donating. You will receive an invitation to the exhibition in the fall. All proceeds will go to support the Ash Forest Project. Any amount helps, and thank you so much for your support.