• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

gathering of pine cones

Human_84

Human_84

Somewhat human
Joined
Mar 30, 2005
Messages
1,330
I was with a friend yestorday evening in the park here in michigan. He was flying a remote controlled helicopter. Anyhow, something caught my eye.

Along a sidewalk that cuts thru the park, was a line of pine-cones probably 30 feet in length. It went back and forth on the sidewalk like a serpent, very irregular curves though. At the end (still on the sidewalk) was a circle of many more pine-cones. Not just a circle but it was filled in with more pinecones you see? 100 or so pinecones right up next to each other made a nearly perfect circle. Ontop of that was a layer of fine bark, ontop of that was some small sticks, and then some leaves at the very top. My thoughts::

1) If people did this, why? I was perplexed but my friend didn't care about it.
2) I really doubt the wind could of made something so precise.
3) Above the pine cone circle was just oak tree branches, so hadn't fallen down from there.
4) Theres only 1 pine tree in the park, and its on the opposite corner, a good 200 meters away.
5) Am I thinking about this too hard for what its worth?
 
It could be a piece of conceptual art. There's a British artist who makes artworks from materials found in the landscape, his name escapes me at the moment, and then photographs and documents these transient structures.

*EDIT. I think it's Richard Long I'm thinking of.

I don't doubt that there's people in the US doing similar things.

Or, it could be the Fairies...
 
Kids, maybe? When I was a little girl I'd build "houses for the ants" out of twigs, bark, grass, flowers. Some of them became rather intricate. Maybe someone built a road for the ants!

I hope some 80s era Forteans came upon my houses for the ants and thought fairies, even if just for a moment!
 
Timble said:
It could be a piece of conceptual art. There's a British artist who makes artworks from materials found in the landscape, his name escapes me at the moment, and then photographs and documents these transient structures.

*EDIT. I think it's Richard Long I'm thinking of.

I don't doubt that there's people in the US doing similar things.

Or, it could be the Fairies...
Click to expand...

Andy Goldsworthy?
 
Check out this piece in particular *foxgloves* - the pinecones description is reminiscent, isn't it?[/url]
 
lemonpie said:
Check out this piece in particular *foxgloves* - the pinecones description is reminiscent, isn't it?[/url]
Click to expand...

no, lol. this was pinecones. the swirving is similar yeah.

Another thing i dont understand is that they could have made shapes in the grass, but this was on the edge of the sidewalk, a poor quality sidewalk. And who would bother putting bark and sticks ontop and everything? plus carrying like 200 pinecones across the park just to make this design that didnt look like.... anything. looked like a sperm actually.
 
i've seen pinecones leave nice, trailing rows and zigzags after a heavy rain. usually in areas where the ground is pretty bare. could that have been the case?
 
Reminiscent, I said.

reminiscent, adj
Definition: suggestive
Synonyms: evocative, similar
 
Weird - I had a strange pinecone experience last week.

In the road right in front of my house there must've been 50 pinecones strewn outside. I live in a street slapbang in the city without a tree to be seen.

Mind you, the night before I'd put out our recycling box which was shamefully full of red wine bottles. The next morning, someone had nicked them all so perhaps the pinecones were recompense.
 
lemonpie said:
Reminiscent, I said.

reminiscent, adj
Definition: suggestive
Synonyms: evocative, similar
Click to expand...

supposed to look like a sperm?


If a person made it i just dont know who would. The park consists mainly of african american males playing basketball. Really not too many people outside of that go there. Dont understand who would do it. I suppose wind is possible besides the perfect circle shape.
 
It could be an attempt by super-intelligent squirrels to establish communication with the human race. (They'd heard about crop-circles and thought they'd try something similar.)
 
"Who did it? Who was that masked man?"

"That was the Cone Arranger!"

"Hi Ho Silver, awaaaaay!"
 
I used to do things like that when i was younger, just for a laugh. I once went into a hard to access area and with my pal Big Jon managed to build a large strange thing out of bricks and bark and bottles and balanced pennies. I figured someone would find it and wonder as to it's origins. I thought it looked pretty good but next time i saw it the 'art critics' had decided to kick it to pieces.
I say human origin for the sake of doing something. Can't say why? expression?
 
Theres a pile of pine cones at the top of our street. i saw local kids collecting them and making the pile. Its much better than seeing them setting dustbins on fire or robbing old ladies houses though!
 
Sometimes when I'm hiking, I'll stop and have a snack while sitting under a tree or in a field.

Since I'm an artist, it's not unusual for me to get inspired to collect twigs, pine cones,etc and arrange them in interesting symbols and patterns.

I tend to hike away from trails purely for my own amusement so it's unlikely anyone ever comes across them but, if they did, I imagine they would find them quite puzzling.

I'd love to have a photo or a drawing of the shape you saw.
 
Anthony Clifton said:
Sometimes when I'm hiking, I'll stop and have a snack while sitting under a tree or in a field.

Since I'm an artist, it's not unusual for me to get inspired to collect twigs, pine cones,etc and arrange them in interesting symbols and patterns.

I tend to hike away from trails purely for my own amusement so it's unlikely anyone ever comes across them but, if they did, I imagine they would find them quite puzzling.

I'd love to have a photo or a drawing of the shape you saw.
Click to expand...

Same here. I often arrange shapes with sticks and leaves when I'm walking the dog. I hadn't really thought about someone wondering what it was about.
 
I guess there are a lot of people who would do this for aesthetic or prank reasons. I've tried to build sentences out of cone pines - but that didn't work very well.

What about Richar Long's circles:
http://www.richardlong.org/sculptures/sculptures.html

And I've been guilty of this behaviour in my own amateurish way:
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23120

Yesterday I cycled by a field in our local park and I thought about creating concentric circles in the lawn by using fertilizer and salt. Surely some pattern would be visible the next year? Has anyone experimented with a prank/art like this?
 
I'm in Michigan, too, Human84; whereabouts was this? Oh, wait, it was a couple of months ago so I'm sure it's long gone by now.
My first thought was crop circle with pine cones. Or, since you said it resembled a sperm, maybe it was a fertility symbol? Kind of an odd thing for someone to do but I guess not too unusual according to other posters who have done similar art work.
 
In my garden, there is a pine tree - sometimes I used to go out and find the pine cones laid out in groups or lines. This was due to my boyfriend (now ex) who would go out there when he was depressed, and silently kick them around into patterns on the flagstones. Sometimes I would go out of the house and hear him kicking pine cones behind the hedge.

Maybe someone very depressed was in the park, trying to think about an unsolvable problem?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top