Itchy in the Grass, 2018.
​Digital Video, runtime 5 min. 

Itchy in the Grass, Excerpt from Ruth K. Burke on Vimeo.

The title of this work is a playful riff of poet William Wordsworth's lesson-filled phrase "splendor in the grass". The poem from which the line originates, Ode to Intimations of Immortality, is one of Wordsworth's most well-known. In an sing-song rhythm, it brings the viewer through the magic of childhood into a later reflection on the loss of that very magic through the aging process. 

Wordsworth, in addition to being a cherished poet, was one of the forefront nature conservationists in the early and mid 19th century, his name synonymous with nature. What is perhaps most poignant of Wordsworth's writings, is his all-encompassing view of nature. Nature is not necessarily just wild and untamed land, that which reflects an absence of human cultivation, but all that is living. According to the 2012 US Agricultural Census "Of the 915 million acres of land in farms in 2012, 45.4 per-cent was permanent pasture". That means over 411 million acres are permanent pasture, or home to domesticated animals. This massive figure is a human-shaped nature, a constructed nature that is tamed and cultivated. 

The video uses rudimentary digital compositing to slowly ripple through multiple scenes as it creates unexpected spaces, revealing another reality, an internal one, viewable only through the frame of the video and therein, the bodies that make up the surfaces. This technique vividly illuminates the brilliant imagery of sky, wind, and leaves often described by Wordsworth in his poetry. Superficially, the work is romantic. It portrays a young woman with an obvious connection to this particular cow. A relationship and natural environment that is cultivated and shaped around the needs of both species.
Or perhaps the cow simply had an itch that needed to be scratched.

Itchy in the Grass from Ruth K. Burke on Vimeo.