Forest 1974

"Forest 1974" inaugurates Hansen's sustained engagement with the wooded interior of Vashon Island as a graphic subject, a theme that would occupy his etching practice across the next several years. The bare year-stamp in the title signals a diaristic approach in which the forest is treated less as a single fixed motif than as a recurring site to be returned to and recorded under varying conditions. The Pacific-Northwest forests around the island are characterized by tall second-growth Douglas fir, western hemlock, and red cedar interlaced with sword fern and salal, and etching is well suited to translating their density into image: closely bitten line and cross-hatching build the layered verticals of trunks, while open passages and selective wiping of plate tone can suggest filtered light and moisture. The work shares its subject with the related 1974 etching "Forest, Woodcutter, and Fire" and the 1975 prints "Forest 1975" and "Forest Clearing — January 1975."