ecoartspace

Urban Sustainability by Jessica Kimmel, ecoartspace intern 2011-2012

2012-01-18T10:47:00.000-08:00

The Urban Sustainability program at Antioch University in Los Angeles encourages a multi-disciplinary approach to solvingissues of scientific and societal importance. The core requirements for thedegree include courses in systems thinking, environmental literacy, socialjustice and a hands-on approach to fieldwork. The program also provides graduatestudy in urban ecosystem science, activism and advocacy, environmentaleducation, sustainable practices, and research methods. A large component isour fieldwork studies-- contributing an opportunity to explore and developskills to our rigorous studies and the experience to preparefor our ambitious futures. In my first semester of fieldwork in 2011, I selected two siteprojects including ecoartspacewith Patricia Watts and Green Public Art with Rebecca Ansert, both out of Los Angeles.

Duringthe 36-unit degree program, I am participating in a series of residencies thatconsist of classroom instruction, guest lectures and elective seminars. Antiochhas a long-standing commitment to social justice in the community that hasallowed me to consider utilizing methods and theories of social sciences towardsolving complex sustainability related concerns. The class has toured the port ofLos Angeles, examined L.A.’s publiclands struggle the beach in Malibu andhiked through Ramirez Canyon, toured Venice onbikes with Bikerowave, and visited the BurbankRecycling Center and PuenteHills Landfill. These tourshave created a really valuable platform for the free exchange of ideaspertaining to making our contribution more sustainable.

Antioch’sUrban Sustainability program will operate as a vehicle for the study ofurbanization and its ecosystemic impacts. As social scientists, educators andcommunicators, I believe we must similarly examine how environmental hardshipis socio-economically distributed. Environmental justice, climate change andland use provide us with excellent context. In the multi-disciplinarytradition, I have long studied and admired leading environmental artists suchas Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter. I applaudhow progressive-intellectuals have successfully used various mediums tocommunicate complex ideas in accessible terms. Adams used photography tocapture the beauty of the American landscape and bring awareness to thenecessity of its protection. Photography is one of my academic and personalconcentrations and as a master’s student my hope is to create an intersectionof creativity and activism to initiate lasting changes.

This year was also my firstexperience curating an art show. I was the student organizer of this yearsannual ArtisticUprising at Antioch, which took place on November 18, 2011. It was such anincredible experience for me to have and has allowed me to grow in ways I neverdreamed of. Working on a project of such importance to the campus and AULAcommunity, continuing the tradition as the fourth annual exhibit, and leadingmy peers through a successful show has given me a sense of fulfillment andvalidated the direction I’ve chosen. The art show was started by Cindy Short in2008. Proceeds from art sales and other activities at the event benefit TheBridge Program. Bridge provides a college education for low-income adults inthe Los Angeles area, at no cost to the student. The program pays their tuitionfor 15 college credits with all other necessary expenses included: books,supplies, bus tokens, and even meals on the evenings of classes.

Through the opportunities Antiochhas given me, I havebeen able to witness first-hand the impacts and influence art can have insupport of a sustainable existence onthe goals of urban sustainability. It is my hope to contribute my efforts tomobilize artists in the pursuit of spreading the message of environmentalconsciousness. I will also be exposed to professionals outside of science andacademia that are working to promote the goals of sustainability byparticipating in the environmental movement. My goal is to encourageenvironmental discourse in the local community and solidify artists as relevantstakeholders in the environmental dialogue. Through project management, artistinteraction and social media, I have a unique opportunity to contribute toecoartspace’s operation, success and continued legacy as an invaluable andeffective environmental resource. I admire what ecoartspace stands for and amthrilled by their initiatives for promoting and reaching sustainability. I amexcited to be a member of their team and hope that our efforts together can transcend social, economic and political boundaries.

2012 has Arrived

2012-01-03T11:08:00.000-08:00

As we prepare for exhibitions, projects, and program for 2012, we realize that our website has not been updated in two years. In the coming weeks we will post a review of our 2011 activities. Stay tuned, we have our largest and most interesting projects happening this year!!!

ISEA 2011 Istanbul, Turkey

2011-11-29T14:36:00.001-08:00

This post is long over due by a couple months! To summarize, ecoartspace was invited to speak at the International Society of Electronic Arts or ISEA 2011 symposium in Istanbul in September on a panel called Public Art in the Sustainable City by Elizabeth Monoian and Robert Ferry from Dubai who also recently invited us to be jurors on the upcoming Land Art Generator Initiative design competition for Freshkills Park (the former Fresh Kills landfill) in Staten Island. Other panelists included Glen Lowry who presented a project he is working on with a large team of architects and artists linking Dubai and Vancouver; and Nacho Zamora from Spain gave a talk about Solar Artworks. ecoartspace presented examples of sustainable public art projects in North America including references for developing public art master plans that focus on ecological systems, much of what was posted HERE on the ecoartspace blog back in May 2011. It was a very productive trip and was made possible through supporters who donated money for artworks via IndieGoGo (Take Me To Constantinople). Patricia Watts kept a personal blog of her journey which you can read HERE.

We also had the opportunity to meet two Turkish artists suggested to us that are doing video work addressing environmental issues, Ethem Özgüven and Genco Gülan. Özgüven has directed short films, videoart and documentaries since 1986 and currently teaches students at Istanbul's Bilgi University how to harness media for environmental education.

Below is Genco's "Shopping Water" video, a conceptual post-apocalyptic under-water world.

Synopsis: Shopping Water is a fairy tale prophesizing capitalisms deliterious effects on global warming. Woman (Katherine Müller) finds herself in an ancient sunken city (Myndos) while shopping for bottled water. The installation points out that, if we continue along our current path of comsumption, we might all need to learn to live underwater.

TURF: Ecological activism and Art

2011-11-23T09:02:00.001-08:00

Through December 1st at Diablo Valley College Art Gallery in Pleasant Hill, California (Bay Area) is a terrific little show organized by artist and educator Hopi Breton. Included are twelve artists, mostly from the Bay Area, with Vaughn Bell from Seattle, Michele Brody from New York, and Northern California's Cynthia Hooper who is currently working with ecoartspace on a water show in Stockton titled Delta Waters.

Many of you who know Cynthia's work as a video artist may not be familiar with her landscape paintings (2000-2008). These small exquisitely painted works, eleven total for TURF, are from an ongoing series that evokes a "Sunday painter" vernacular cataloging human impacts on the land. Instead of ignoring the industrial detritus for these beautiful crafted landscapes, she includes it all just as she sees it, just like the wildlife and elements that also have to work with human impediments on the land.

Another artist from Oakland, Alex Jackson, who created "Our National Scenic Resources" while in graduate school in 1992, recently revived this work for TURF. The original installation included a replica of a National Parks wooden Information station with volunteer style designed pamphlets that incorporate collage of images and text that the artist has assembled through the years about how we relate to and interact with nature. Titles include: Interpreting Scenic Beauty Estimates, Nature As Logo, Ornamental Palms in California, and Understanding Bears, Alcohol and Human Nature. Jackson includes content taken from government and trade publications, advertising and academic articles pointing out the structures we impose on nature in our efforts to manage and conserve it. He included three new pamphlets for this recent iteration and has continued to place them in racks at park visitor centers and other tourist information sites unauthorized through the years as his creative expression.

Also included, a photographer from San Francisco Christina Seely, who has captured stunning imagery, almost painterly, of major cities at night. Three works included that are from her series "Lux," capture the oddly alluring artificial glow produced by urban lights. The three largest illuminated areas that are seen from NASA's satellite maps of the world at night are the United States, Japan, and Western Europe. Her work is inspired by the beauty the lights present, although at the same time begs the viewer to question our dependence on energy that has a huge impact on our planet.

Vaughn Bell's portable landscapes, or "Pack of Forests" with accompanying water bottles and a portable "surrogate" mountain, each with attached walking leash, added a layer of interactivity making for a playful atmosphere. And, Stephen Galloway's unique photographic scans of rhizomes were blown up and floating in space, nature observed, examined in parts.

Get out to see the show if you are in the area before it closes on December 1st. You won't regret it. And, thanks to Hopi Breton who shared with ecoartspace that she was inspired by our work to curate this exhibition. She also noted that her art students were interested in environmental issues which also led her to TURF. It is rare that an artist curates a show for others and does not include their own work. Kudos Hopi!

Elizabeth Demaray's "lichaffiti"

2011-11-22T21:17:00.001-08:00

Last month, in early October in New York City during Art In Odd Places, a visual and performing arts festival sited in the public sphere along 14th Street from river to river, you just might have been lucky enough to take a walking tour with artist Elizabeth Demaray to visit her Lichen for Skyscrapers Project. For this project, Demaray sought to ameliorate the lack of native vegetation found in global cities by culturing lichen on the sides of skyscrapers and other manmade structures. The artist states "Lichen, a wonderfullyadaptable plant, can grow vertically on many porous surfaces. Once propagated,it forms a protective barrier, insulating its supporting surface from harmfulelements while serving to lower the cumulative temperature in metropolitancenters." Lichen, which barely needs any water to survive, is an ideal plant for a public work project, and also is intended by the artist to remedy the urban heat island effect. It is known to lower temperatures by absorbing sunlight and reflects heat due to its color, while also making oxygen, and it doesn't have any roots!

Demaray concocted a lichen slurry consisting of lichen with natural protean substrate that was spread on various surfaces of buildings after gaining permission from the owners. It takes about three months for the lichen to propagate. If it doesn't take, it simply dries up and blows away to find another place with more favorable conditions. A video of the plantings and walking tour are currently being produced featuring time-laps footage.

Demaray teaches at Rutgers-Camden. She is a recipient of the National Studio Award at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and is a New York State Foundation for the Arts Fellow in sculpture.

All photographs taken by Elizabeth Cheviot

Freshkills Park: A new beginning

2011-10-10T16:46:00.000-07:00

For the last two years Freshkills Park has invited the public to come take a "sneak peak" full day tour of the transformation that has been taking place over the last ten years at the largest landfill site in the world. On Sunday, October 2nd this New York City park project offered free water taxi rides direct to the site from Pier 6, a one hour journey past miles of industrial sites, some still in production, far from the eyes of Manhattan. At the park were temporal art installations and science booths as well as guided walks, kayaking, and Mierle Ukeles' famous The Social Mirror garbage truck from the late 1970s.

ecoartspace was recently invited to jury an upcoming design competition at Freshkills, a collaboration of the Land Art Generator Initative and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. One of the goals of the park is to site large scale public art works. Elizabeth Monian and Robert Ferry of LAGI, who have been focused on energy based artworks in recent years out of Dubai, proposed an ideas competition for 2012. Contestants are invited to identify public art works that will harness energy from the site and convert it to electricity for the utility grid, in addition to providing conceptual beauty.

Freshkills consists of 2,200 acres, almost three times the size of Central Park. It is the largest park to be developed in NYC in over 100 years. The park is meant to be a "symbol of renewal and an expression of how our society can restore balance to its landscape." It will continue to be built out in several phases over the next 30 years and includes an unusual combination of natural and engineered beauty with creeks, wetlands, meadows and spectacular views of the New York City.

The monetary prize award of $20,000 will not guarantee a commission for construction; however, LAGI will work with stakeholders both locally (NYC) and internationally to pursue possibilities for implementation of the most pragmatic and aesthetic LAGI designs.

GreenHomeNYC's DIY Green Block Party

2011-10-04T07:39:00.000-07:00

Saturday, October 1st ecoartspace had a booth at the annual GreenHomeNYC DIY Green Block Party in Brooklyn. This is something that we rarely do anymore, not that we don't want to, there is just only so much you can do. We presented prints, books and artworks, and had many interested buyers for our political posters by JustSeeds:Resourced series. Although, the rain came in the early afternoon, so we called it a day early. The biggest draw was Tattfoo Tan and his hen called 5p.m., one of 5 chickens he currently has at his home on Staten Island. It was amazing how many people were stopped in their tracks having realized that they were in the presence of a chicken! Grown men who remembered having cared for hens when they were boys were drawn in and reliving their childhood. Children were cautiously curious and their parents intrigued with the idea of urban chicken farming. Tattfoo was on hand to give advice on the logistics of having chickens within the city limits. The most common question all day was "is it legal to have chickens in the city." The answer: Yes. But, only hens, not roosters (for obvious reasons, they are too noisy). It would be great to do more events like this to share the work of ecological artists at green events. However, this is where we need help, to identify funding for creative education programs! It is important to pay artists for their time.

Here is a short video showing you where Tattfoo's hens live on Staten Island:

WIRED.com review

2011-08-14T14:27:00.000-07:00

Brandon Keim writes for Wired.com on Beyond the Horizon curated by Amy Lipton at Deutsche Bank. The exhibition remains on view through September 16th in their 60 Wall Street Gallery, NYC. Open by appointment only - please contact amy@ecoartspace.org for a tour of the exhibition.

Link to article HERE

image "Oil" by Aviva Rahmani, 2011

Beyond the Horizon at Deutsche Bank NYC

2011-05-23T10:12:00.001-07:00

June 6 – September 21, 2011

Opening June 15th, 6:00 - 8:00pm

Deutsche Bank 60 Wall Street Gallery, NYC

Amy Lipton, guest curator

Beyond the Horizon explores contemporary views of nature and habitat expressed through the tradition of landscape painting and drawing. Fourteen New York-based artists in Beyond the Horizon envision specific places from perceptual, historical and conceptual perspectives while at the same time they record the ongoing evolution of human interaction upon the environment. Previously held notions of nature vs. culture have changed for the 21st century and it is increasingly clear that all of life is one interconnected and interdependent system. Underlying the works in Beyond the Horizon is an acute awareness of environmental issues such as climate change, overpopulation, habitat changes, recycling, waste disposal, and reclamation. Some of the artists are committed to merging their art with action and implementation, while others are more interpretive. Using realism, fantasy or process as a source for imagination and transformation, they seek to create an awareness of loss and beauty in the marginal, the overused and the threatened.

Exhibition tours, an opportunity to 'Meet the Artists' and a panel discussion are planned. Please contact amy@ecoartspace for further info.

The artists are all based in the NY region and include Joy Garnett, Eva Strubel, Lisa Sanditz, Jason Middlebrook, Sarah McCoubrey, Eve Andree Lara mee,George Boorujy, Peter Edlund, Sarah Trigg, Charlotte Schulz, Marion Wilson, Patricia Johanson, Aviva Rahmani,Spencer Finch

AFTA PAN Public EcoArt Webinar and upcoming Pre Conference Panel San Diego

2011-05-22T09:59:00.001-07:00

Andrea Polli, Queensbridge proposal for alternative

energy (NYC) 2005

On May 4th ecoartspace had the opportunity to participate in an online webinar through Americans for the Arts out of Washington D.C. For several years now their Public Art Program Manager, Liesel Fenner, who previously worked for the New England Foundation for the Arts in Boston where she developed a partnership between the NPS and the NEA called Art & Community Landscapes by inviting artists to participate in education and restoration of public lands, has been an advocate of ecological art. For the webinar, Fenner invited a group of ecological arts consultants and a public artist to the table to share valuable information with the public art community on Going Green: How to Align Public Art with Green Building and Infrastructure. During this 90-minute presentation some 37 participants from across the United States were able to access important information on a rapidly developing field of artistic practice.

The first presenter was Mary Jo Aagerstoun, President of EcoArt South Florida. In her talk, Public EcoArt Integration: Transforming Policy she outlined case studies and policy examples for integrating art that makes green technologies visible into the design and construction of green building as well as public infrastructure. Rebecca Ansert, Founder and Principal of Green Public Art in Los Angeles gave a comprehensive presentation entitled Green Building: Where Does The Art Fit In? to examine how public art can meet LEED certification points as well as materials usage. Emily Blumenfeld, who is currently based out of London, and formerly from St. Louis, Missouri where she co-founded Via Partnership, reviewed a Public Art Master Plan that she co-authored for the Environmental Protection Department for the City of Calgary, Canada, known as the Expressive Potential of Utility Infrastructure. And, to wrap up the webinar, public artist Mark Brest van Kempen from Oakland, California presented several projects in various forms of completion, exemplified from the artists perspective, the numerous ways in which art can transform public space from an ecological perspective.

Patricia Watts, founder and west coast curator of ecoartspace gave a short talk on the artist selection process, which included suggestions for extended deadlines on RFQs, workshops for ecological artists who are new to the public art process, suggestions for who to bring to the table when selecting artists including Environmental Services Department employees and local biologists/ecologists, as well as art curators who have worked with many of these artists in a museum context. Importantly it was impressed upon public arts administrators to be proactive in bringing these types of projects to fruition. Often it is the case that administrators do not see themselves as collaborators with the artist and for these types of projects it is imperative that as much information as possible be provided to the artist as early as possible to be able to identify a crucial point of integration in the planning and construction process. Administrators will need to think outside their job description to make these projects successful.

The Going Green Webinar will be available to the general public on demand through AFTA after June 1st for $35 per download HERE. There will also be a follow up Public Art Preconference workshop at the AFTA Annual Conference in San Diego on June 15th, entitled Green Infrastructure: Re/Generation—Environmental Art & Design: Now and How including presentations by Rebecca Ansert, public artist and administrator Vaughn Bell, landscape architect Christine Ten Eyck, and Patricia Watts of ecoartspace.

Listen in online or see you in San Diego in June!

Links to other pioneering Ecological Public Art Plans include:

A Theatre of ReGeneration: Towards an aesthetic of layers, loops, and lenses. Broward County Environmental Art Master Plan - Parks/Bond and Beyond, Florida 2004 by Lorna Jordan
Southeast False Creek Art Master Plan, City of Vancouver, Canada 2007 by Buster Simpson
Currents and Eddies: Toward an aesthetic confluence of people, nature, culture, and built environment City of San Antonio, Texas 2005-6 by Lorna Jordan
Cinematic Frames & Progressions: A Public Art Vision Plan for the Harbor Wetlands Ecological Reserve City of Ventura, California 2001-9 by Lorna Jordan.

Nurturing Nature: Artists Engage the Environment

2011-02-23T07:49:00.000-08:00

Nurturing Nature opened on February 10th, 2011 and runs through April 16th at OSilas Gallery on the campus of Concordia College in Bronxville NY.

Artists in the exhibition include: Eva Bakkeslett, Norway; Vaughn Bell, Seattle; Susan Benarcik, NYC; Michele Brody, NYC; Jackie Brookner NYC; Linda Bryne NYC; Xavier Cortada, Miami FL; Sonja Hinrichsen, Germany; Basia Irland, CO; William Meyer, Westchester, NY; Maria Michails, NYC; Roy Staab WI; Joel Tauber, CA.

Curated by Amy Lipton, ecoartspace and Patricia Miranda, Director OSilas Gallery

Concordia opened 130 years ago as a small Lutheran College. SInce then it has grown from a pre-seminary religious training school to a liberal arts college welcoming students of all faiths. OSilas Gallery Director Patricia Miranda invited me to curate an exhibition on art and the environment. In keeping with the college's history, we decided the show would include a focus on various spiritual or ethical traditions in relationship to our care of the planet, what Christianity terms Stewardship, Tikkun Olam or repair the world in Judaism and Compassion for all living beings in Buddhism. Images and knowledge of nature can all be found in all ancient spiritual traditions, as well as Biblical and medieval mystical texts and pagan rituals which involve sun and moon cycles, star formations, tides, seasons, animals, gardens and plants. The artists in this exhibition are working with transformative approaches and processes towards a new vision that is ecological, and participates with the living cycles of nature.

The works cover a range of sensibilities and formal styles and address various issues including solar energy, suburban sprawl, species decline, food, agriculture, recycling, water purification and plants for restoration. What all these artists have in common a desire to to bridge the gap between art and life by raising an appreciation of the natural world and by working in a collaborative process with nature. Many of the artists work in an interdisciplinary basis with scientists, botanists and biologists and also participate in community based educational projects where they engage with the public.

Linda Byrne's sculptural installation titled Ghost Net resembles a giant fishing net. Her material (the ubiquitous and life-threatening to marine life), 6-pack plastic ring, tells a tale of our vanishing natural world. She cut and tied the uniform, machine-made rings into strands and, with repetitive action, wove them into a linear shape. Subject, concept, and material coalesce to examine the uneasy relationship that exists between nature and synthetics. Also included are 6 of Byrne's large scale drawings based on the forms of fishing nets. The series are devoid of color to express the lifeless nets left behind by our ailing fisheries and polluted coastal waters.

Susan Benarcik takes elemental forms of the natural and man made world into her studio and carefully transforms them by stacking, stringing, layering, knotting, and weaving them into dimensional sculpture for public and private spaces. Simple materials become contemplative compositions as they evidence a fondness and respect for the natural world and bring equilibrium to our senses by allowing the nature to become part of our daily cognitive experience. Her work for Nurturing Nature is titled Why Our Hangers made from wire clothes hangers, and string. These materials dictated the final form, which resemble chrysalis, wombs, or droplets, forms that are unique to essential natural processes.

The essence of Michele Brody's work is to understand how we live with change and the constant flux of our environment. She invites the viewer to a more openness of sensation through the production of ephemeral installations and living sculptures. Her work titled Grass Skirt Sentinels, use materials including copper pipe, fabric, light, grass seed and water, and are sustainable sculptures that support the growth of plants. During the course of the exhibition the works will transform as they go through a full life life cycle with the use of unique lighting

and a water irrigation system.

Alchemy - The Poetics of Bread by Eva Bakeslett is a beautifully executed and lyrical film about an activity once ubiquitous in almost every household. Eva is the both the maker and the baker of Alchemy and was brought up in Arctic Norway where baking bread is still common in many homes. Her rhythmical movements and confident touch is rooted to generations of woman baking their bread. The timeless beauty of the process brings baking into the realm of poetry and the art that goes beyond the walls of the gallery and onto our kitchen tables.

Roy Staab is a nomadic artist who has been traveling around the world to make art installations in nature for the past thirty years. His earth-sensitive site-specific works use locally available materials and result in ephemeral earthworks that eventually devolve back into nature. The works can last for days or weeks depending on weather conditions and forces of nature. Since 1979 he has been documenting these works with his own camera immediately upon finishing them. Included in Nuturing Nature are two of Staab's large scale photographs. Baleen was made in the Northwest Harbor in Gardiner's Bay (Eastern L.I.) off the Atlantic. Big Round pictured here was created in Denmark in summer of 2008 for a group exhibition on Marbaek Beach near Esbjerg. Staab spends the first few days at the site, studying the landscape and watching the changes of light over the course of the day. When the tide came in he walked along the beach and found a sand-dollar fossil. With that in mind the next morning he walked up the river estuary and found a small bay off the shore in an open area. Using the sand dollar design as inspiration he made the five rays of the fossil and then started to walk around and around in a pattern of his foot steps using his eye for measurement.

Taking the form of a running rickshaw, William Meyers' Green Rickshaw Project highlights what individuals, businesses and municipalities are doing towards creating sustainability in Westchester County NY. The Green Rickshaw builds a community of its own as it conceptually and physically navigates between actions being taken by organic farmers, locally made products, municipal sustainability initiatives, and home energy audits. Components of the Green Rickshaw include a rickshaw chassis fabricated from recycled bicycle parts, a steel kiosk, reclaimed oak ‘pulls’, zero formaldehyde birch plywood, bamboo flooring, flexible solar panels, a green roof module, a traveling library, and a cell phone recharge station.

Nurturing Nature includes 180 pencil drawings by Xavier Cortada for the first time presented in their entirety Endangered World: LifeWall. In 2009, Cortada created drawings of the 180 Endangered World animals struggling to survive on our planet's eastern hemisphere and, as a performative work, assumed the identity of the animal by uploading those images online as self-portraits on his facebook profile photo.

A second installation by Cortada titled Reclamation Project includes 180 Atlantic Cedar saplings in clear, water-filled cups arranged in a grid on the gallery windows and mirroring the 180 drawings in the Endangered World Project. The saplings are up for adoption, visitors can sign up to take home an Atlantic White Cedar tree for their yard or neighborhood at the end of the exhibition.

Maria Michails' The Handcar Projects are a series of works revolving around issues of industrial agriculture, topsoil erosion and biofuel. The handcar reflects on the history of the train and its impact on economic and urban growth and explores the artist's interest in energy generating mechanisms in the form of a mode of transportation. On the wall behind the Handcar are a series of small plexiglass houses covered in photographic images of corn. Titled, Off the Grid they reflect the competing economic factors on land use exerted by population growth and urban expansion. The small houses in Off the Grid question the ubiquitous use of this raw material and raise the question of whether we use precious land to feed ourselves, house ourselves or fuel ourselves?

Sonja Hinrichsen has 3 video works/ perfomances of ephemeral works created in nature. In Sun/Moon an environmental installation/performance piece from Wyoming, 2008 the artist chose an open plain to perform a ritual, positioning rocks, one by one, to draw an ancient symbol that has been used by indigenous cultures throughout the world, to represent the sun – as well as the moon. The rocks were coated with a phosphorescent material and glowed for several hours after sunset.

For Paradise Tree, an environmental intervention in Spain, (Sept. 2008), Hinrinchsen tried to find words reflecting what she saw, heard, smelled and experienced and then embroidered these words onto the leaves of a fruit- bearing fig tree.The slow, meditative act of embroidering became a performance, commemorating myths of Moorish times telling of beautiful young women who, while being kept at home, were dreaming of passion and adventure.

Vaughn Bell's sculptures Personal Biospheres explore the miniaturization of landscape, the separation of one piece of “land” from the whole, and the relationship of care and control that this embodies. A tiny mountain or a small piece of land is suddenly within the scale of the human body, implying a different relationship than the one of awe, alienation or domination that is present in many encounters with our surroundings.

Jackie Brookner has been making sculptural tongues out of soil called Biosculptures™ since 1992. These works are vegetated water filtration systems that create destinations, restore urban habitat, and reclaim the undervalued resources of stormwater and other polluted water. Early versions of these evolved into soil chairs, where earth can embrace the whole body. “The tongue is a provocative image because it is a part of our selves where our physical and mental functions come together--a place where taste, sex and speech meet--where the dualism of mind and body clearly breaks down”.

Basia Irland's A Gathering of Waters: Boulder Creek, Continental Divide to Confluence was created for Weather Report: Art and Climate Change, curated by Lucy Lippard for the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, 2007. The Backpack/Repository, suspended from beaver-cut aspen, is constructed from recycled truck inner tubes. Objects from the four-month long project contained within the Backpack/Repository include the Logbook, Canteen, video documentary, forty-seven water samples (one for each mile of the creek), watershed maps, and two images of Arapaho Glacier. The Glacier provides most of Boulder’s drinking water, so when it has melted away, where will the residents of this Colorado community obtain their water? This question prompted the artist to create a 250-pound, hand-carved ice book embedded with native riparian seeds – Columbine, Blue Spruce, and Mountain Maple. This ‘ecological text’ is released asthe ice melts in the current. Irland worked with stream ecologists, river restoration biologists, and botanists to determine the best seeds. When the seeds regenerate and begin to grow along the river, they help with restoration efforts by building the soil, holding banks in place, and stopping erosion.

A beautiful and forlorn tree, stuck in the middle of a giant parking lot. Ignored and neglected. Hit by cars, and starved for water and oxygen. Joel Tauber, a young and amorous man, is drawn to the tree. Outraged by the indignities that the tree is forced to endure, he devotes himself to improving the tree’s life – watering it with giant water bags, installing tree guards to protect it from cars, building giant earrings to celebrate its beauty, lobbying to remove the asphalt beneath its canopy and to protect it with a ring of boulders, and helping the tree reproduce. Sick-Amour functions as a microcosm of the plight of urban trees and of forgotten individuals in general. Sick-Amour culminated as 3 distinct artistic entities: a 12-channel video tree sculpture, a public art project comprised of approximately 150 “tree baby” plantings throughout California, and a 33-minute hybrid love story / documentary film.

Images top to bottom: Installation view with Grass Skirt Sentinels by Michele Brody; Why Our Hangers by Susan Benarcik; Grass Skirt Sentinel by Michele Brody; Big Round by Roy Staab; Green Rickshaw by William Meyers; Endangered World by Xavier Cortada; The Hand Car Project and Off the Grid by Maria Michaels; still from Paradise Tree by Sonja Hinrichsen; Biosphere by Vaughn Bell; and A Gathering of the Waters: Boulder Creek by Basia Irland. For more images go to my Flickr page or further info please see the website for OSilas Gallery.

Happy New Year!!!

2011-01-12T02:49:00.001-08:00

We had a busy 2010! Below are highlights of our most prominent exhibitions and events last year. Looking forward to more exciting projects in 2011 . . . .

January 10 - April 11, 2010

This exhibition included select works from the Museums permanent collection depicting human and animal forms that emphasize movement, dance, and ritualistic activity. It also addressed the influence of feminism and politics as well as the integration of multiple materials and media. Highlights include an Egyptian bronze cat, a pre-Columbian terracotta jaguar relief, a standing female figure from the Ancient Near East, and twentieth-century works on paper by Alberto Giacometti, Lee Krasner, and Robert Rauschenberg. Reviewed in Roll Magazine.

April 11 - July 3, 2010

Outdoor sculpture park exhibition with artists Susan Benarcik, Jennifer Cecere, Ruth Hardinger, Larissa Killough, Melissa McGill, Leslie Pelino. The six installations investigated and re-invigorated abstract sculptural forms with an emphasis on surface and made use of found materials such as plaster molds, food packaging containers, metal clothes hangers, lace, nylon, rope and used clothing. The works addressed interiority, containment or concealment, while at the same time demonstrating flexibility and transparency via the use of holes and openings.

April 28th, 2010

Included 300+ works donated in response to the NY Times dot earth question by Andrew Revkin, “What matters most?” This question was posed to initiate the project. The submissions encompassed several mediums from pencil drawings, watercolors and oil paintings to 3D objects in ceramics and metal, photography and video. Benefit Exhibitio n

April 15–May 12, 2010

Suzanne and Mathilde Husky installed miniature "bonsai tree" sculptures made from sewn together used and recycled clothing inside a long bank of storefront windows where thousands of office workers stroll through everyday during their lunch break. Curated in partnership with the World Financial Arts program.

May 14 - June 20, 2010

Solo exhibition featured in the Project Space entitled Stories from the North Woods including paintings and fiber pieces with graphic and animated imagery, symbols and layers of humorous narrative, addressing the artists' local environmental issues in Mendocino County. Many of these works commented on the physical and cultural byproducts of the Northern California logging industry and the vernacular of redwood tourism.

June 27th, 2010

Habitat For Artists collaborative spent the summer working in studios hosted by the Hudson Highland Land Trust in Garrison, NY at their site at Philipsebrooke. These small studios, each only 6 x 6 ft, become an intimate workspace for the artists - but also act as a metaphor for viewers to contemplate how much space we really need in our own homes. HOW MUCH? HOW LITTLE? THE SPACE TO CREATE is the question HFA poses. Artists rotated over the course of the summer and included: Susan English, Sheilah Rechtschaffer, Carol Flaitz, Michael Natiello, Sarah Haviland, Marnie Hillsley, Kit Burke Smithe, Christopher Manning, Carla Goldberg, Dionis Ortiz, Todd Sargood and Simon Draper.

August 1 - November 28, 2010

The exhibition, curated by Jennifer McGregor, showcased artists’ projects that raise awareness about issues concerning watershed fragility, industrial and natural history, personal responsibility, and ecological balance. Included Lillian Ball, Jackie Brookner, Mags Harries and Lajos Heder, Natalie Jeremijenko, Patricia Johanson, Lorna Jordan, Matthew Mazzotta, Eve Mosher, Buster Simpson, Susan Leibovitz Steinman, Suzanne Lacy, and Yutaka Kobayashi, George Trakas and Mierle Laderman Ukeles. ecoartspace produced two video interviews with Patricia Johanson and Jackie Brookner which you can view HERE.

September 25th, 2010

Included artists/collaboratives: Roy Staab, Chrysanne Stathacos, Billy Blaise Dufala of RAIR collaborative, Simon Draper and Todd Sargood of Habitat for Artists and performance artist Chere Krakovsky. Each created temporary public art projects along the Manayunk Canal in Philadelphia. EcoArtFest opened in conjunction with Destination Schuylkill River, an NPO whose mission is to celebrate life along the river and to connect communities to the river through planning, programming and projects.

September 17-October 24, 2010
Solo exhibition entitled Nothingness Projects/Journey to Green Horizons featured in the Project Space including works which Spiess had created from 2002-2003 on a barren island off the coast of Deer Isle, Maine. Her work reveals connections between art and survival, survival as creativity through ritual activities, or Nothingness Projects, documented with photographs and video.

October 2-December 4, 2010
Survey of contemporary artists presented at the Otis College of Art and Design who combine hand making and building techniques to create or engineer unique, mostly functional devices, objects, and machines; making either a social/political statement, creating new markets for individual styled products, or inventing ways to experience the tactile world, non-virtual, the “real.” Included makers Kim Abeles, Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Frau Fiber, Garnet Hertz, Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, Seth Kinmont, Liza Lou, David Prince, Mark Newport, Alyce Santoro, Shada/Jahn (Steve Shada and Marisa Jahn), Eddo Stern.

November 3, 2010 - January 22, 2011

EcoArchive: Mediations on Time and Nature challenges us to step outside of our daily experience, to consider on a deeper level the forces that shape the natural world, and how time collapses as we move into the future. Co-curated group exhibition with photographs, video, sculpture by Sam Easterson, Karl Cronin, Cynthia Hooper, Chris Sicat, Matthew Moore, Chris McCaw, Jessica Skloven, Tamara Albaitis and Mark Baugh-Sasaki.

December 10, 2010

Agents of Change: Artists and Sustainability was a panel discussion including Brandon Ballengee, Jackie Brookner, Eve Andree Laramee, Stacy Levy, and Tattfoo Tan, each explore issues of sustainability and ecology often to create community-based or public art projects. Moderated by Amy Lipton and Patricia Watts. Co-hosted by ArtTable, ecoartspace, and the Shelia C. Johnson Design Center. In conjunction with the exhibition Living Concrete/Carrot City.

MAKE:CRAFT closes December 4th - two more weeks!

2010-11-19T08:21:00.000-08:00

In the last decade we have experienced the convergence of a worldwide financial crisis, two wars, and a developing interest in the sustainability movement. Due to our growing awareness of climate change and limited resources, American culture is responding with an almost romantic return to the basics. Growing your own food, repurposing your old stuff, and making your own accessories and gadgets have become a part of popular culture. Craft is back, although reinvented and redefined. Contemporary artists have joined the ranks of techies and tinkerers by making and crafting unique objects or social settings. Their work is both functional and/or makes sociopolitical statements that address our naïve and insatiable consumption of goods and media and its effects on the world around us.

The artists in MAKE:CRAFT display ingenuity, hand-making and technological skills, and participate in what could be termed an Art & Design-to-Craft Revolution. This activity has its roots in the Arts & Crafts Movement of the late 1800s, which responded to the industrialization of goods produced in Europe. At the turn of the 20^th Century magazines such as Popular Mechanics and Craftsman began what is now a legacy of self-taught, skill-based knowledge sharing, and inspired current trends in the Do-It-Yourself (D.I.Y.) Movement, a historically American characteristic.

In the 1950s, the craft movement sought to be included in the contemporary art dialogue as it was typically valued as functional or utilitarian. Today many contemporary artists are turning to traditional crafts for exactly that reason, to create socially relevant works that engage communities in practical and empowering ways. It is an opportune aesthetic for the more performative arts including dialogic and relational public practice work that often overlaps with the “green” or sustainability movement.

In 2005, in response to this maker renaissance, MAKE, a quarterly project-based magazine was launched. Its sister publication, CRAFT was introduced the following year, and together they produce the annual MakerFaire in San Mateo, California. This fair, along with other efforts including the Renegade Craft Fair, Anarchist Book Fair, Eyebeam Roadshow, Sewing Rebellion Chapters, and Scrapyard Challenge Workshops are now international in scope. Several artists in this exhibition have been featured in Make and Craft and have initiated these events that operate outside typical art venues.

The artists included in MAKE:CRAFT create work about slowing down, skill-based empowerment, personalization of mass culture, open source sharing of knowledge, and challenging capitalist models of consumption. They want to contribute their skills in ways that break through economic and social confines, and give meaning to what they do. Ultimately, the work presents the many possibilities for making or crafting a new world.

Patricia Watts, guest curator

Artists include Kim Abeles, Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Frau Fiber, Garnet Hertz, Justseeds Artists' Cooperative, Seth Kinmont, Liza Lou, David Prince, Mark Newport, Alyce Santoro, Shada/Jahn (Steve Shada and Marisa Jahn), Eddo Stern and special performance by Crank Ensemble.

Showing at Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles until 12/4

MAKE:CRAFT Facebook page with images from the exhibition HERE

More information on the MAKE:CRAFT Blog HERE

DECEMBER: ecoartspace SOHO HOLIDAY STORE & Agents of Change panel discussion

2010-11-17T07:32:00.000-08:00

(click on image above to enlarge)

ecoartspace HOLIDAY STORE in SOHO!

December 4th – 12th
53 Mercer Street, 3rd floor
open from noon to 6pm

Come do your holiday shopping at the ecoartspace office in Soho! We will be exhibiting the remaining artworks donated to our Spring benefit What Matters Most. Works can also be viewed and purchased online HERE and are ONLY $150 each. We will also have additional prints, books, stickers and select paintings and sculpture. Perfect holiday gifts!

AND, on December 10th Amy Lipton and Patricia Watts will moderate a panel discussion: Agents of Change: Artists and Sustainability focusing on five artists, Brandon Ballengee, Jackie Brookner, Eve Andree Laramee, Stacy Levy, and Tattfoo Tan who explore issues of sustainability and ecology, often to create community-based or public art projects. Their work sits at the nexus between art, life, science, and nature and finds direct, effective ways to engage its viewers. These artists use diverse methods–including dialogue and interaction—to deal with everyday life situations and solve real-world challenges. They often work collaboratively on multi-disciplinary projects that include scientists, ecologists, botanists, landscape architects, and engineers to create large-scale works or interventions in the social sphere. This discussion will focus on their intention to activate the public into making positive changes in their own lives and communities.

The panel is Co-hosted by ArtTable, ecoartspace, and the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons The New School for Design and presented in conjunction with the exhibition Living Concrete/Carrot City at the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center.

Registration Information
Click here to register now
6:00pm | - 8:00pm December 10, 2010
Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Auditorium
Sheila C. Johnson Design Center
Fifth Avenue at 13th Street
New York, NY

EcoArchive: Mediations on Time and Nature at Intersection 5M

2010-11-17T07:00:00.000-08:00

(Found oak burl painstakingly covered with individual strokes of a soft graphite pencil by Chris Sicat)

EcoArchive: Meditations on Time and Nature is a group exhibition including artworks that articulate contemplative environmental perspectives and time-based narratives in photography, sculpture, and video. In our rapidly advancing world of technology where perception of time and space is distorted by the immediacy of text messaging and instant streaming of content on the internet, these artists respond to the use and consumption of natural resources by "naming the parts" in ways that slow us down. Their work challenges us to step outside of our daily experience, to consider on a deeper level the range of human activities that shape the natural world, and how time collapses as we move into the future. Some of the art works are intentional archives documenting the environment and landscape; other art works are poetic or aesthetic manifestations of nature, providing another lens with which to view our role in helping to maintain nature’s balance in this new century.

Includes Tamara Albaitis, Mark Baugh- Sasaki, Karl Cronin, Sam Easterson, Cynthia Hooper, Chris McCaw, Matthew Moore, Chris Sicat and Jessica Skloven.

Co-curated with Patricia Watts, founder and West Coast Curator of ecoartspace

At Intersection 5M at 5th and Mission in San Francisco, California November 3, 2010 - January 22, 2011.

SF WEEKLY Review HERE

Harvest #35 from Karl Cronin on Vimeo.

Nature and Peace at Geumgang Nature Art Biennale by guest blogger Anke Mellin

2010-10-05T19:54:00.000-07:00

Geumgang Nature Art Biennale was first held in 2004 and again in 2006 and 2008. This year it is titled “Nature and Peace." Yatoo was founded almost 30 years ago in Gongju, in the Chungnam Province, 150 km south-west of Seoul. Yatoo, is the name of the Korean Nature Artists Association which organizes the Geumgang Nature Art Biennale and means "Thrown into the field". The Korean artists use the term “thrown into field,” because, as Koreans, they feel the responsibility for nature is theirs. Why? Korea is a unique country in many ways. As a technically advanced society, it lives collectively in respect for ancient culture and nature. It requires individuals to responsibly share their experiences abroad, to learn from other cultures how to honor nature because many countries have this problem now. This has resulted in Korea being one of the largest Land Art or Nature Art centers in the world.

Within the exhibition's title, and the rhetoric of the artworks is a reflection of how people could behave so as not to discourage or disrupt other species, the way they have discouraged swallows. How can one live in harmony with the whole of nature? Art gives us advice in finding answers to this sticky question. Trees, water, light, sound and even wind become a part of the artist‘s installations. They will be standing on site for some time and the site will change its form and structure with help form nature itself. The whole process can be observed in the park and at the Geumgang riverbank throughout the year.

The combined rich and diverse histories of this year’s participants guarantees a high level of quality work. We have 15 artists from 13 different countries: Ghana, Cameroon, India, Poland, USA, Germany, Peru, Philippines, Netherlands, New Zealand, USA, Canada, Hungary, Bulgaria and Japan, and 12 artists from the host country, South Korea. The character of each creator’s piece is shaped by the unique culture, history and geography of his or her country of origin. Each piece is also marked by the artist’s specific relationship to nature. It is not surprising that the installations differ from each other to such an extent.

Nereus Patrick Cheo, Cameroon (above), was inspired by debris washed up onto the beach by the Atlantic to create “The Watch Tower Kiosk.” He used found plastic water, beer and soft-drink bottles to make an open structure which talks about a worldwide problem: A great majority of the world’s population consume water and drinks from these bottles but at least half of these bottles are never recycled. His project entailed the construction of a Kiosk-like shape 5m high and 3 x 4m wide. The kiosk is a dome shaped sculpture beautifully created from used bottles woven together with wire on a base of bamboo, wood and nails. Utilising the bottles as an artistic statement, he has given them a new life.The work offers an opportunity for attention, care and open vistas for reflection on how we interact with our environment.

For Roger Tibon, Philippines (above), the watchwords "nature and peace" are a metaphors for a journey uniquely associated with the boat. This is not surprising considering that the Philippines are comprised of more than seven thousand islands. Many of them are inhabited by people who have never left them, and often travel by boat. The boats are more than just a way of movement and communication for them. The boat, with three figures on it, has been installed hanging under one of the cities bridges enabling many people travel over this traveling symbol. Of course the real contemplation begins when we reach a beautiful riverbank and silently, listening to sound of the water and gaze at the sculpture from a distance.

New Zealand artist, Donald Buglass’ Cell (above), relies on the beauty of physics to hold itself up. Cut sections of tree trunk support each other and demonstrate a link between the constructive tendencies of humans and the environment. “Cell” represents the beauty and balance of nature. It is the cells of plants, nucleus of an atom or, perhaps, the rising sun. At the same time it portrays a fundamental shape for shelter (in this case, one we are excluded from) and the peace and security that this might otherwise offer us. His work also has underlying references to the ancient graves at Yeonmisan.

Karen Macher Nesta (above), Peru, is an artist who believes in specific interaction between mother earth and Her inhabitants. In the ancient beliefs of her country, the land must be respected. Consequently people offer gifts to nature: fruit, animal blood, coca leaves etc., asking Her to be more fertile and calm. Earthquakes are also in her nature, and if it comes to this kind of disaster it means that She is angry. The artist used rabbits as a symbol of fertility because of their fast reproduction capacity. The rabbit figures were made from clay, and were designed to last for a short period of time in order to return to the earth where they came from (some cement has been added to extend this period). Over thirty larger-than-life rabbits are located around main path in the Ecological Park. The rabbits will eventually disappear and be absorbed into the forest floor.

The work of Pawel Chlebek Odebek, Poland, refers to central values such as family, love and care. In “The New Generation” (above) the artist points out the mystery of new life and implies its dependence on our care. The art-work is a pine sapling planted in soil between the two large opposing torsos, male and female. Eventually the project will result in the interaction between the carved form and nature’s power (as the growing tree trunk expands). Time is co-creator of this piece.

For these artists, nature and peace are much more than just words.

Facts:

Organizer – Korean Nature Artist Association Yatoo (established 1981)

The year of the first Nature Art Biennale – 2004

Term of exhibition – three months, from 16^th September until 15^th November 2010

2010 Participants:
Korean: Chunchung Kang, Heejoon Kang, Hyunhie Ko, Soonim Kim, Yongik Kim, Haesim Kim, Bongi Park, Seunghoon Byun, Seunggu Ryu, Eungwoo Ri, Chungyeon Cho, Kang Hur

International: Chintan Upadhyay (India), Donald Buglass (New Zealand), Eizo Sakata (Japan/France), Ichi Ikeda (Japan), Karen Macher Nesta (Peru), Karin van der Molen (Netherlands), Nereus Patrick Cheo (Cameroon), Patrick Tagoe-Turkson (Ghana), Pawel Chlebek Odebek (Poland), Roger Tibon (Philippines), Ryszard Litwiniuk (Canada/Poland), Suzy Sureck (USA), Toni Schaller (Germany), Sandor Vass (Hungary)

The full article is published in the second issue of WEAD magazine online HERE.

Freespace by guest blogger Matthew Slaats

2010-10-05T06:24:00.000-07:00

Freespace is an exploration of the relationships built between people and place, may they be urban, suburban or rural. It looks to inhabit the everyday space, the space that once was, and space that is constantly in between. The objective is to develop a network of sites, through partnerships with individuals and communities, to elucidate experiences of ownership, privacy, sustainability, and identity.

This process begins by asking about spaces that have meaning to you - may it be a vibrant moment from your past, a rethinking of a space that is familiar to all, or a curiosity along a walk. The project seeks out these spaces, using the public’s own intimate experiences. You are then able to donate to the site to Freespace through text and images, eventually being posted to a website that situates the location within a larger global network. By creating an archive of the meanings that connect people to place, relationships are built that reveals memory and challenges identity. Once the collection is defined, each site will become a node in a program to reconnect people with in space. Tours, site visits, and narratives will provide ways for engagement and expanded connections.

The concept for Freespace came while sitting at the summer home of the Vanderbilt Family in Hyde Park, NY, now a part of the National Park System. The space defines a relationship with place that most will never see or experience. The question of how this space represents the United States comes to mind? Even more specifically how does it represent my own experience? Where is the National Park site of the every day person? The ranch home or the suburban neighborhood comes to mind. What about spaces of decay? Empty lots are spattered across post-industrial cities. Going further, might we think of something more intimate, more private? Could a park reside in a memory, consist of a favorite chair, or the space between ones fingers?

Freespace asks the public to seek these spaces, defining them from their own perspective. They may be conceptual, textual, or physical; and range in size from micro to macro. The project looks to engage the range of associations that people have with space, building a collection of unique environments that take on further meaning by the fact that they are described, located and catalogued. In the end what will be defined is a breadth of perspective that shows the vitality of peoples relationship with what is around them.

To get involved go HERE and select the link “Getting Involved.”

On October 9/10th Freespace will be a part of the Conflux Festival in NYC.

Matthew Slaats is an artist based in the Hudson River Valley exploring community based artist practice.

ecoartspace joins Destination Schuylkill River at the Manayunk Eco Art Fest

2010-09-21T04:04:00.000-07:00

Recently I’ve been traveling back and forth to Philadelphia working with five artists who are installing temporary public art projects along the Manayunk Canal in Philadelphia. These projects opened on September 25^th and 26^th in conjunction with Destination Schuylkill River and the Manayunk Eco Arts Festival. Destination Schuylkill River is a NPO whose mission is to celebrate life along the river and to connect communities to the river through planning, programming and projects. The weekend event brings together artists, crafters, green businesses, and ecologically-concerned community groups to share resources and education about green and healthy living and will be a celebration of artistic, sustainable, and local green initiatives. Manayunk is located a few miles west of Center City, Philadelphia.

The Manayunk Canal is part of the Schuylkill River Trail and is designated as a National Historic District. Once a navigable waterway for industrial cargo, the Canal was completed in 1818 and runs for several miles adjacent to banks of the Schuylkill. The river ends its 128-mile journey in Philadelphia, passing through East Falls and Manayunk before emptying into the Delaware. A recently restored towpath on the banks of the canal is the site for five artist’s projects that address issues of sustainability.

For some background history of the site - in papers dated 1686 between William Penn and the Lenni-Lenape, the Lenape referred to the Schuylkill River as "Manaiung", their word for river, which literally translates as "place to drink". As fate would have it, this once industrial mill town has become a trendy bar and restaurant destination.Early settlers farmed the land above the hills of Manayunk, and the abundance of natural resources and the Industrial Revolution spurred development of the community. Along the Schuylkill mills sprung up with products as varied as cloth, paper, gunpowder, lumber, milled wheat and corn, and pressed oil from flax. The Schuylkill Navigation Company Canal provided power to the mills along the river and allowed coal to be transported to the steam engines of Philadelphia from a hundred miles upstream. The original towpath was the path used by mules as they pulled canal boats carrying coal and passengers through the water. As a part of Pennsylvania’s earliest slackwater canal system, the original navigation system was a 108-mile series of dams, locks, slackwater and canal segments created to bring coal from Schuylkill County to Philadelphia. Today, the Canal is no longer in use for industry, most of the mills have closed and the city has eventual plans to open the locks and revitalize the water system.The original mule path has been restored for pedestrians and bicyclers to become part of a river greenway system that stretches for miles. Destination Schuylkill with funding from the William Penn foundation asked ecoartspace to invite several artists to create temporary site-specific works along the canal for the festival.

Wisconsin based artist Roy Staab spent over two weeks working at the site. First he carefully selected the best location along the Canal where his ephemeral sculpture would be most visible, while at the same time protected from strong winds. He chose to work between two trees whose branches overhang the water, and in between two bridges so that visitors would have different perspectives for viewing the work. He then set out to find wild plants nearby that he harvests in order to create the lines to make his sculpture. He used invasives such as Japanese Knotweed and Purple Loosestrife which were both flowering and actually quite beautiful, (though no one wants these invasive and fast spreading plants - so it was great that he could make use of them.) Roy also used Goldenrod and other native plants. He then created 4 long lines using a weaving and knotting procedure with biodegradable sisal rope. The lines measure approximately 180 ft long in length and suspend 20 ft from the trees. He titled the work, "Suspended Between the Living and the Dead" referring to the two trees being used as his support. Roy mostly worked alone but he had a few college interns and great support from Destination Schuylkill and the Manayunk Development Corporation staff, in particular, board member Garrett Elwood spent a lot of time on the water. Roy entertained neighbors in the community and got a lot of attention, both positive and negative (local fisherman were not happy). However, mostly the town appreciated having a world traveler like Roy working in their midst. He has created ephemeral installations such as this one around the world for the past 30 years in the U.S., Europe, South America and Asia. His works may last days or a couple of weeks, or months depending on weather and the forces of nature.

Chrysanne Stathacos traveled to Philadelphia from Toronto to create an 8ft wooden flower poem which she floated on the Manayunk Canal. For the past several weeks she has been researching water plants such as Lilies and Lotus Flowers to determine which plants will be best to tag a ride in her floating sculpture, which spells the word PURIFY. She chose this word as a reminder of the importance of wetlands and clean water, and that we can all do our part to help heal the environment. Chrysanne is a multi-media artist whose artistic concerns intersect with spirituality and a communion with the natural world. Her art is influenced by Eastern and Western traditions and she works to connect indigenous ritual to contemporary art.

Habitat for Artists is a Hudson Valley-based collaborative group initiated by artist

Simon Draper in 2008. ecoartspace has worked with HFA on several previous projects including last summer in the exhibition Down to Earth at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. One of HFA’s studio/shed structures was located in a small park in between the Canal and Main St. Parts of this shed were previously used at SCEE, so they have a small travel footprint. The sheds are comprised of recycled material, old lumber, windows and doors and are used by artists as studio spaces (each only six by six feet) both inside and out to examine how they might redefine their creative space, needs and process. The Manayunk HFA shed was open during the two day Festival, artists Simon Draper, Todd Sargood and others were on site for visitors to engage with and participate in the making of art.

Women’s Work by NYC performance artist Chere Krakovsky was an extension of her recent Clothesline performance held at Solar One, overlooking NYC’s East River. This is her third performance piece in Philadelphia, following her 2008 work, The Neighbors Next Door at International House at UPenn. All of Chere’s works are situated where the everyday and the creative co-exist. She hung a clothesline along the Manayunk Canal to address issues of energy conservation, domesticity and traditional women’s work. Looking back to her own grandmother, Chere reminds of a not too distant past where wind and sun power were harnessed to dry the laundry. The work asks us to reflect on our over-consumption of energy in a time of economic decline. Chere has invited the community to participate by bringing an item of clothing that will be hung on the clothesline.

RAIR (Recycled Artist-In-Residency) is an exciting, new non-profit in Philadelphia located within a construction and industrial materials recycling facility. Initiated by Fern Gookin, a recent graduate from Philadelphia University’s Sustainable Design Program, RAIR’s mission is to create awareness about environmental issues by encouraging creative ways to divert wastefrom landfills. RAIR works to bring art and sustainability together through an artist-in-residency program. RAIR currently has two artists piloting the program, Billy Blaise Dufala and Machele Nettles, and they were located on Main Street in Manayunk exhibiting their works and hosting a kids art making project.

The Manayunk Eco Arts Festival is a joint effort of the Manayunk Development Corporation and Destination Schuylkill River funded by the William Penn Foundation.

Images top to bottom:

Historical Canal photograph, 1918

Roy Staab, Suspended Between the Living and the Dead

Chrysanne Stathacos, Purify

Habitat for Artists at the Manayunk Canal

Chere Krakovsky, Women's Work

RAIR, Billy Blaise Dufala, Tricycle

Remediate/Re-vision exhibition at Wave Hill

2010-08-18T07:38:00.000-07:00

I recently attended the opening for Remediate/Re-vision: Public Artists Engaging the Environment at Wave Hill in the Bronx. The exhibition showcases artists’ projects that raise awareness about issues concerning watershed fragility, industrial and natural history, personal responsibility, and ecological balance. Artists in the exhibition include Lillian Ball, Jackie Brookner, Mags Harries and Lajos Heder, Natalie Jeremijenko, Patricia Johanson, Lorna Jordan, Matthew Mazzotta, Eve Mosher, Buster Simpson, Susan Leibovitz Steinman, Suzanne Lacy, and Yutaka Kobayashi, George Trakas and Mierle Laderman Ukeles.

The exhibition design provides each artist or artist team with a large wall presentation including text, photographic images, documentation and in some cases videos. It's graphically crisp and clear to look at if somewhat bookish. Curator Jennifer McGregor explained to me that the entire exhibition will be very easy to travel as everything is designed on computer files that can be sent without shipping anything. Nice to see a "green" show with a green concept for travel! This exhibition focuses on current or recently completed projects with a few exceptions.

ecoartspace provided two video interviews for this exhibition. Patricia Johanson was interviewed by Amy Lipton and Jackie Brookner was interviewed by Patricia Watts. For viewing the interviews please go to the ecoartspace youtube page HERE.

Several of the artists were there for the opening and gave brief talks about their work. First to speak was Lillian Ball about her completed project WaterWash which is made of recycled glass, permeable pavement and vegetation to replace asphalt to act as storm water mitigation in Southhold Long Island, NY. She also presented an architectural model as a proposal for a new version of WaterWash for the Bronx River.

Buster Simpson then spoke about his work titled The Monolith in Redding, CA. This work was commissioned by Turtle Bay Exploration Park and created from the ruins of a former gravel plant and the building of the Shasta Dam. Simpson has proposed a water recirculation system and large solar panel for the rooftop of the structure.

George Trakas spoke about his Newton Creek Nature Walk in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He created public access to a long-inaccessible shoreline surrounding the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. Trakas' Nature Walk provides an interpretive frame on its surroundings. From staged granite steps to the water’s edge, visitors can sit on a series of getdowns perforating the bulkhead along the Whale Creek tributary. Mags Harries and Lajos Héder, presented Terra Fugit. This project provided an opportunity for the artists to fully design a section of a new regional park in a fast growing, completely new community in Miramar, South Florida. The design explores the nature of the land, time, and human occupation and development on a 200-acre site located near the Everglades. This area was still open wetlands in the late 90’s and the waterway, excavated to obtain fill material for raising the grade of the surrounding site, has become the central focus of the park. Lorna Jordan, spoke about her project Terraced Cascade in Scottsdale, Arizona. The work consists of a series of stepped, rib-like terraces and vertebrae-like cascades. Water flows down the cascade in a metaphorical gesture that suggests water rolling down a human spine—a miniature watershed allows storm water to supplement the irrigation system. Planted terraces provide a demonstration of desert-conscious landscaping and the sculptural garden is an abstraction of the human body in the desert landscape. The artwork’s objective of creatively using storm water is sensitive to the need for harvesting, using and reusing water in an otherwise dry region.

Jackie Brookner presented her recent project, Veden Taika, The Magic of Water. The work consists of three floating islands in the Halikonlahti Bird Pools in Salo, Finland. The largest island provides nesting sites for birds and the two smaller islands contain plants for phytoremediation, These islands are vegetated with plants specially chosen to remove pollutants from the water and sediments. During the warm months a cloud of mist, powered by wind, will rise up over the islands several times a day. Wind powered aerators beneath the islands oxygenate the water and stimulate microbial processes on the plant roots. Eve Mosher, then spoke about her current project, Seeding the City, in NYC which utilizes social networking to site urban interventions in the form of green roof modules. It capitalizes on community building to introduce urban environmental issues and remediation tools. The modules and their accompanying flags and street level signage will track the growth of the network throughout the neighborhood. Online resources will include mapping of the project, tools for tracking local urban heat island effect and resources to recreate the project worldwide. ecoartspace participated in Seeding the City last fall as part of the exhibition Down to Earth at 53 Mercer St, NYC, we had four of the original planted roof modules on view.

Last, but far from least, Mierle Laderman Ukeles spoke eloquently about her ongoing decades of work with the Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island, NY. As the official artist in residence of the NYC Dept. of Sanitation, Mierle has been involved from the beginning in the plan to transform Fresh Kills Landfill into a public park. The park will eventually have four sections, and will be twice the size of Central Park. Mierle suggested that it might take another 20 - 30 years before the park is completed. (In the same breath she mentioned that she is now 70 yrs old). The average time period for all of the works represented in Remediate/Revision from inception to completion was 10 years. Mierle is an inspiration in her dedication and perseverance as are all of the artists in this exhibition that take on large-scale public remediation projects as art.

Meanwhile, Mierle has a proposal soon to be implemented for one million people to participate in an artwork for Fresh Kills Park titled PUBLIC OFFERINGS MADE BY ALL REDEEMED BY ALL, where “Donor Citizens” will release material offerings via cultural transfer stations. Stay tuned for more information on that as well as on upcoming events at Wave Hill associated with this exhibition.

Artists Talks will take place on Saturday October 9th with Natalie Jeremijenko and Patricia Johanson and on Sunday October 10th with Jackie Brookner, Eve Mosher and Susan Leibovitz Steinman at Wave Hill.

Remediate/Re-Vision is up at Wave Hill through November 28, 2010.

Images top to bottom: Veden Taika, The Magic of Water by Jackie Brookner; Mags Harries and Lajos Heder speaking about Terra Fugit;Waterwash by Lillian Ball; Terraced Cascade by Lorna Jordan, Mist rising over Veden Taika, The Magic of Water by Jackie Brookner, Seeding the City by Eve Mosher, Aerial view of 2200 acre boundary of Fresh Kills Landfill

DIGITAL'2010: PLANET EARTH by guest blogger Cynthia Pannucci

2010-07-28T16:59:00.000-07:00

OPEN CALL

12th International Juried Digital Print Exhibition
organized by Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. (ASCI)
to be held at the New York Hall of Science
October 3, 2010 - January 31, 2011

Our blue planet, spinning like a jewel in our solar system, has been perceptually defined by the technology of each era, from believing the Earth was flat, to the scientific understanding that it spins on its axis and has gravitational pull, to being part of just one of many solar systems. In terms of scale, humans are too small to viscerally comprehend our planet’s magnitude and the dynamics of its interconnected physical systems. We therefore break the concepts down into smaller parts, collect data and physical specimens of all kinds, and invent instruments to measure and track physical phenomena like earthquakes, tornados, and hurricanes. However, we still cannot grasp the “big picture” of planet Earth unless we read, look at photos, and finally… use our imagination to help envision/conceptualize it!

We invite artists and scientists to submit original digital prints that reflect their perceptions of our planet. Are these perceptions changing as we learn more about Earth from explorers, scientists, and artists? What is the relationship between all living things and planet Earth? What images are evoked by calling it the blue planet or the peaceful planet or the changing planet? What is the human impact on the whole planet? What is our concern for its future?

The museum furnishes the frames (18"x24"); If selected, just send your digital print(s) in a cardboard tube!

ENTRY DEADLINE: August 16, 2010

Details & Submissions online only:
http://www.asci.org/artikel1102.html

ecoartspace NY summer exhibitions

2010-07-07T15:52:00.000-07:00

Since moving to Garrison, NY from NYC in 2001 I’ve organized museum, gallery and sculpture park exhibitions that have taken place in towns up and down the Hudson including Yonkers, Nyack, Beacon, New Paltz and Ghent - but collaborating with the Habitat for Artists (HFA) group has been my first opportunity to work on an exciting project right near my home. HFA was initiated in the summer of 2008 and came out of the work of Cold Spring-based artist Simon Draper. Initially he built a series of small shed structures that were placed at Spire Studios in Beacon, NY. They were made from used and recycled material, old lumber, windows and doors and even unfinished art works. Draper invited several artists to participate in the project, which then became known as Habitat for Artists. The artists took up residency and created small studio spaces working both in and outside the structures. They were asked to examine how they might redefine their creative space, needs and process. These small studios, each only six by six feet, become an intimate work space for the artist - but also act as a metaphor for viewers to contemplate how much space we really need in our own homes. HOW MUCH? HOW LITTLE? THE SPACE TO CREATE is the question HFA poses. In other words - how much more creative could we be as a culture if we used less materials, energy and land?

In the two years since it began, HFA in collaboration with ecoartspace has partnered with over twenty organizations and engaged with over fifty artists in various locations. Completed projects have taken place in Rhinebeck at Poet’s Walk with Scenic Hudson, in the town of New Paltz and at the SUNY campus, Kingston, Workspace Harlem, Urban Go Green NYC, Chashama in Times Square and Solar One on the East River Park, NYC. Aside from the current project at the Hudson Highlands Land Trust in Garrison there are also new works installed at Common Ground Farm CSA at Stony Kill, NY Burlington Community College in NJ and coming this September in Philadelphia along the Schuylkill River with the Destination Schuylkill Project.

Currently there are several new HFA artists working in studios hosted by the Hudson Highland Land Trust in Garrison, NY at their site at Philipsebrooke. Artists will rotate over the course of the summer and include: Susan English, Sheilah Rechtschaffer, Carol Flaitz, Michael Natiello, Sarah Haviland, Marnie Hillsley, Kit Burke Smithe, Christopher Manning, Carla Goldberg, Dionis Ortiz, Todd Sargood and Simon Draper. River of Words, a Garrison School based group of students hosted by Irene O’Garden and Lisa Mechaley have already created artworks for the HHLT site. Images: top Sarah Haviland, bottom left Sheilah Rechtschaffer, bottom right Susan English.

Habitat For Artists seeks to engage the artist with their community and to provide the opportunity to create a more dynamic relationship and role for the artist in that community. The Hudson Highlands Land Trust is a community-based organization devoted to protecting the natural resources, rural character, and scenic beauty of the Hudson Highlands in NY State’s Hudson Valley.

Agent of Change - James Reed in San Francisco

2010-07-04T06:47:00.001-07:00

In 2008, ecoartspace co-curated an exhibition for Exit Art in NYC entitled Environmental Performance Actions, which included a video documentation of Agents of Change, a Unit Earth Agenda project developed by Shelley Sacks and James Reed of the Social Sculpture Research Unit, Oxford Brookes University (UK). Although I was familiar with the work, yesterday I had the opportunity to meet Reed in San Francisco and to experience first hand what it might be like to be an "official" agent of change.

A group of five participants met at noon at the new Intersection 5M gallery, located in the San Francisco Chronicle building at Mission Street and 5th, where we spent three hours in an open discussion on what is agency and sharing personal experiences that catalyzed change in our lives. We then heading down to 4th at Mission Bay where we put on customized Agents of Change life preserver vests and held large wooden measuring sticks that illustrated the depth of several meters of potential water encroachment due to climate change. Each participant stood on their own along the waterway and was encourage to reflect on our own sense of agency in this situation, the site, and to record others concerns. Attached to the life preserver was a booklet where we could register and offer a receipt to passersby, confirming their concerns about climate change.

Reed studied under Shelley Sacks, a former student and collaborator of Joseph Beuys at Oxford Brookes from 2005-2007. It was during this time that they developed the Agents of Change climate change kits and began what has become a series of workshops and public interventions initiated at the Social Sculpture Today exhibition in Basel, Switzerland in April 2007.

Questions this project asks are:

How do we develop a wider personal and philosophical framework that cultivates a deep sense of personal and shared meanings?

How do we develop a culture of transforming our mode of consciousness?

How can we begin to realize our full potential as human beings and work as transformers of the materialist thought systems that shape our world?

How do we excavate the insights of the heart?

Linda MacDonald: Stories from the North Woods

2010-07-02T11:18:00.000-07:00

While living in Northern California the last five years, I have seen work by many artists who are concerned with environmental issues. The paintings and fiber works by Linda MacDonald have continued to inspire me during this time and I recently had the opportunity to curate a small show of her graphic narratives at Gallery Route One in Point Reyes (Marin County). The show was part of WITH THE EARTH: Art and the Environment project at GRO, an ongoing exhibition series initiated in 1990 in response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Below is an excerpt of my catalogue essay:

Most can only imagine what it is like to witness first hand the social and economic impacts of the logging industry in the Pacific Northwest. For those living in urban cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, etc., or wide open spaces in the southwest, we know on a visceral level that over time the removal of large areas of old growth, or Rainforest, has a “fragmenting” effect on us all.

Linda MacDonald, however, experiences the visual evidence of our insatiable consumption daily in her own backyard. Born in Berkeley, and raised in Marin, she moved to Mendocino County in Northern California with her husband in 1970. They purchased fourteen acres in the “north woods” near Willits where they renovated an abandoned log cabin. It was during this period, spent out in the trees, where MacDonald decided to devote her studio time to establishing an arts practice in fiber and painting. After seven years and having two children, they decided to move to town for logistical reasons. And, it has been the highs and the lows of living in a timber-based economy, including California’s redwood tourism, that has inspired a lifetime of capturing this uniquely American regional vernacular.

Included were over 20 pieces with paintings, prints and fiber works. There is a 20-page catalogue which can be purchased for $15 directly from the artist (linda@lindamacdonald.com). The exhibition ran from May 14 - June 20, 2010. Facebook event information HERE.

Top: Triangles in the Forest, 2007 (oil on paper)
Middle: Down by the River, 2009 (oil on paper)
Bottom: California Trees, 2009 (oil on paper)

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE

Camille Turner reports on the upcoming Subtle Technologies Festival June 4-6

2010-05-27T17:22:00.000-07:00

We're fast approaching my fav time of the year, Subtle Technologies, June 4 - 6. I've been involved in this annual festival since its inception in 1996. It attracts some of the most innovative artists, scientists and thinkers from around the world started as an intimate weekend gathering hosted by an arts collective at InterAccess Gallery in Toronto. We were inspired by a project initiated by one of our members who after returning from visiting several ancient sacred sites, wanted to collaborate with us to build one in Toronto. She shared her excitement and wonder, noting that the sacred sites were built with the latest technologies of their time, some of which have now been lost. We wondered what the latest technologies were of our time.

With seed funding from the programming committee at InterAccess, we invited scientists and technologists to inform us and the Subtle Technologies Festival was born. Our very first weekend event in 1996 was a magical meeting of minds. It was small, intimate, exciting. We had potluck dinners and discussions over pints of beer. We felt like we were at the centre of the universe, rediscovering lost parts of ourselves and discussing issues that were vital to the planet.

Fourteen years later, the festival is still alive with the sense of awe and wonder guided by our original mission. This year the theme is Sustainability. From June 4 - 6 noted presenters will converge on Toronto to share their work and rub shoulders with attendees in an intimate and friendly atmosphere.

Here are a few of the highlights of this year's fest...

Junk to Juice DIY power generation on the cheap May 29th & 30th, 12pm – 5pm at OCAD Learn how to make you own electricity using generators built from trash. The generators will run off simple, non-polluting, sources, such as waste heat and wind. This workshop is by Hacket, director of The Madagascar Institute

Contingent Ecologies May 22 to June 12, 2010. Opening – June 4, 2010.
Unconventional thinkers create the future in this exhibition of build environments in public space curated by myself, Camille Turner, and Michael Alstad.

In Water Colours, an art and science boat cruise Saturday, June 5th 7:30PM to midnight Come and party with us as we rock the boat with the sparkling Toronto skyline as backdrop. Festivities include a recital by Gordon Monahan on his new instrument, the “Sauerkraut Synthesizer” and Zev Asher performing a documentary film starring his body. The voyage will be the vessel for a program of video and sound art chosen to reflect concerns for the water in and below us.

Community Day Sunday, June 6, 2010 Learn how to create a do-it-yourself garden to grow your own food! See an exciting documentary about two linguist adventurers searching for lost languages! Play in the mud with our interactive seed bombing activity! Explore, create and learn!

Hope to see you at the festival!

You can follow Subtle on Twitter @SubtleTech
or fan them on Facebook

Here's a video from last year's fest.

Camille Turner is a Toronto-based artist and cultural producer who uses media and performance to build bridges across cultures and differences. She is a curator with the Subtle Technologies Festival.

What Matters Most? 2010 benefit wrap up

2010-05-21T05:18:00.001-07:00

It's hard to believe almost an entire month has passed since our NYC benefit. It was a whirlwind month with exhibitions in three spaces simultaneously as well as two evening events. First for the What Matters Most? exhibition at Exit Art we began hanging the show on April 13th with 200 works which grew to 290 before the final sale date of April 28th. We hung the show in rows of 2 but ended up with a few salon style walls. The works were amazingly diverse and interesting. Some addressed the NY Times dot earth question that we posted to initiate the project - others were more generally about nature and/or art's relationship with nature - and the range encompassed every medium from pencil drawings, watercolors and oil paintings to 3D objects in ceramics and metal - to photography and video. We were genuinely overwhelmed with the generosity of the donating artists and the amount of time and effort that went into creating their beautiful and inspiring works of art.

Midway through the exhibition, ecoartspace presented a free evening of programs at Exit Art which included the documentary film Crude:The Real Price of Oil by Joe Berlinger, a gripping film about the ongoing and protracted legal battle between Texaco/Chevron and a small community of Ecuadorian indigenous people. Their lands and water have been polluted by these oil companies with high instances of cancer and disease in the local population. Following the screening, artist Jackie Brookner delivered a needed uplifting lecture about the relationship between humans and the natural world with many provocative images. She also read from her recent book, Urban Rain published in conjunction with a major public art project of the same name in San Jose, CA. Closing the evening, Elizabeth Thompson, Director of the Buckminster Fuller Institute, presented images and information about the Buckminster Fuller Challenge finalists. The inspirational Challenge finalists project proposals range from natural water irrigation systems, monitoring air pollution, creating neighborhood local food economies, and reversing desertification of the world's savannas and grassland. On June 2nd the BFI Challenge winner will be announced and given the deserved $100,000.00 cash prize to work towards implementation of their proposal.

The following week, for the ecoartspace closing evening party and sale, we hosted over 150 guests who purchased 45 artworks, enjoyed delicious food, IZZE sodas (all donated), wine and beer at the Exit Art underground bar and music by David Rothenberg and Ben Neill in the adjacent theater/lounge. The Exit Art staff were supremely helpful and gracious with their time throughout the 2 week exhibition and during the party. All in all - it was a monumental effort for which we raised nearly $10,000 (not bad for a first time event)!

At the same time, over at Chashama at W. 44th St, ecoartspace sponsored another exhibition by the Habitat for Artists (HFA) team titled "Recycling the Studio." In this very high trafficked block (which was closed off to vehicles the night of the opening) passersby could wander in and experience a mini artist's studio (habitat) with an opening window that looked out to 44th Street, as well as an art exhibition by 15 artists involved with the HFA project including mainstays Simon Draper, Todd Sargood and Chris Manning. Wall Street Journal writer Wendy Bounds spent a day inside the habitat blogging about her experience.

At the opposite end of Manhattan in Battery Park City, another ecoartspace sponsored project was on view as part of the World Financial Arts program. Artists Suzanne and Mathilde Husky installed their miniature "bonsai tree" installation titled Forest, sculptures made from sewn used and recycled clothing. It was installed in a long bank of storefront windows in the World Financial Winter Garden where thousands of people stroll through everyday during their lunch break or as visitors to the riverfront walkway just outside. It was exciting for us and for the artists to be involved in such high profile venues and in conjunction with other 40th anniversary Earth Day celebrations.

Last but not least some nice press and listings for the event:

NY Times Dot Earth blog
Treehugger
Inhabitat
The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts
Earth Day New York
thing.net
DadaMail/Exit Art
Hybrid Press
Newsgrist
Wall St. Journal on HFA at Chashama
The Metro NYC on Forest at World Financial
NYC loves NYC on Forest

images from top to bottom:
installation view of What Matters Most? at Exit Art
David Rothenberg and Ben Neill in performance at Exit Art
Wendy Bounds reporting from Chashama
Forest at World Financial Center

Critical Messages: Exhibition UPDATE by guest blogger Deanna Pendell

2010-05-19T10:32:00.000-07:00

Twenty-six contemporary Northwest artists respond to environmental concerns in Critical Messages, curated by Sarah Clark-Langager. Familiar leaders in environmental art, such as Buster Simpson and Chris Jordan, join with emerging artists in Clark-Langager’s invitational exhibit in the Western Gallery at Western Washington University (Bellingham); the exhibit will also travel to the Hallie Ford Museum in Willamette, Oregon, and the Boise Art Museum in Idaho.

Most of the work takes a light touch to the issues, using beauty or even humor to drive home the poignant messages. American Romantic landscape traditions haunt the paintings, prints, and photographs, as fine craftsmanship clashes ironically with subject matter.

The sculptural works are more inquisitive, particularly John Grade’s “Collector." The elegant forms were anchored in seawater for 16 months to grow harvestable oysters and seaweed, then bolted to the front-end of a truck and driven for a thousand miles, then mounted for birds to pick clean.

Vaughn Bell’s “Personal Biospheres,” (wearable ecosystems for one person), Karen Rudd’s “Last Stand” (enormous tree stumps made from cardboard), and Susan Robb’s “Signal Transduction” (electronics which mimic the communications used by plants) are also highlights from this astute survey of works.

Submitted by guest blogger Deanna Pindell who makes ecologically-focused installations and public art. Portfolio and daily eco-art postings at: www.facebook.com

Images/Poster from the recent NYC Benefit for ecoartspace at Exit Art Underground

2010-05-18T13:58:00.000-07:00

CLICK ON IMAGES & EVENT POSTER BELOW TO ENLARGE

Go to the What Matters Most Blog to see images of many fantastic works
still available for sale - ONLY $150

Inhabitat report on ecoartspace NYC Benefit 2010

2010-05-02T12:17:00.001-07:00

CLICK IMAGE TO GO TO ARTICLE BY ABIGAIL DOAN

ECO ART: New York Times’ Dot Earth and Ecoartspace Ask ‘What Matters Most?’ 05/01/10

Sneak a Peak of the upcoming benefit sale

2010-04-13T12:25:00.000-07:00

Apologies to our ecoartspace fans who are looking for recent posts here. Both Amy and I have been flooded with a range of projects and travels the last couple months that have taken our focus away from the blog. After the benefit we will resume posts in May, promise.

We invite you to either come to the exhibition benefit at Exit Art this month or spread the word to your friends in New York who can attend. It is an affordable adventure, one that is supporting important work to help provide a platform for artists addressing environmental issues in the visual arts.

Please join us in celebrating 10 years of programming!

Go to the What Matters Most? benefit blog to get updated information HERE.

ecoartspace NYC 2010 benefit "What Matters Most"

2010-02-12T20:17:00.000-08:00

ecoartspace invites you to participate in our first NYC benefit exhibition titled What Matters Most? The show and benefit party will be hosted by Exit Art in NYC from April 15 – 28th, 2010.

What Matters Most? began with responses to this question posted on Monday February 15th on Andrew Revkin’s NY Times blog, Dot Earth by leading environmental experts, writers and readers and is still active in the archive (click on Dot Earth above). Participating artists have the option of creating an original artwork related to the blog entry of their choice or donating an existing work.

All proceeds from this fundraiser will support ecoartspace activities and programs. ecoartspace has been operating as a bicoastal nonprofit platform for artists addressing environmental issues since 1999. In our ten years of programming we have worked with over 400 artists, curated 38 exhibitions, 70 programs and collaborated with over 140 organizations. To celebrate our achievements as well as raise money for future programs we recently held our first benefit auction at Mina Dresden Gallery in San Francisco on December 4th, 2009.

What Matters Most? begins Thurs April 15, 2010 and ends with our Benefit Sale: Thursday, April 28th , 2010. PLEASE CLICK ON THE FLYER ABOVE FOR MORE DETAILED INFORMATION.

CONTACT: amy@ecoartspace.org or tricia@ecoartspace.org

276 artists participating as of 4.10 include:

Joan Bankemper, Andrea Reynosa, Joy Garnett, Michele Brody, Chrysanne Stathacos, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Diane Burko, Sandy Gellis, Fritz Haeg, Steven Siegel, Joanne Greenbaum, Lisa Hoke, Dove Bradshaw, Jaanika Peerna, Chris Kennedy, Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky, Teri Hackett, Elizabeth Demaray, Robert Lobe, Kathleen Gilje, David Schafer, Claudia Hart, Lori Nozick, Christy Rupp, Kathe Burkhart, Joanne Howard, Abigail Doan, Alan Wexler, Charles Goldman, Marion Wilson, Emily Brown, Katie Holten, Robin Kahn, Nina Yankowitz, Carter Hodgkin, Geoffrey Hendricks, Nina Katchadourian, Hunter Reynolds, Erik Hanson, Janet Pihlblad, Kunie Suguira, J.J. L’Hereux, Austin Thomas, Mikael Levin, Rhona Bitner, Michael Somoroff, Sandi Slone, Jill Levine, Steve Keister, Alison Moritsugu, LC Armstrong, Stacy Levy, Jan Harrison, David Webster, Simon Draper, Mary Mattingly, Susan Leibovitz Steinman, Ann Rosenthal, Steffi Domike, Mary Ann Strandell, Kazumi Tanaka, Aviva Rahmani, Robin Lasser, Brandon Ballengee, Shan Wells, Carla Gannis, James Brady, Joyce Cutler-Shaw, Lenore Malen, Thomas Huber, Rick Mills, Alan Michelson, Lisa Adams, Chrissie Orr, Susan Silas, Elisa Pritzker, Joy Episalla, Carrie, Yamaoka, Eve Andree Laramee, Jenny Hankwitz, Sant Khalsa, Melissa McGill, David Nyzio, Molly Herman, Mary Anne Davis, George Lea, Ruth Hardinger, Glenna Cole Allee, Suzan Shutan, Cathey Billian, Leonard Bullock, Stefan Hagen, Barbe Slitkin, Stefanie Nagorka, K.K. Kozik, Carla Goldberg, Claudia Schwalb, Joan Perlman, Monika Teal, Bill Schuck, Despo Magoni, Gregory Botts, Steven Kenny, Jackie Brookner, Tom Snelgrove, Lisa Adams, Dianne Bowen, Catherine Harris, Jennifer Cecere, Truman T. Lowe, Doug Henders, Rodney Samuelson, Stephanie Brody-Lederman, Mimi Smith, Kathryn Lynch, Basia Irland, Joel Tauber, Xavier Cortada, Beverly Naidus, Peter Bynum, Kathleen Sweeney, Anne Senstad, Brian Alfred, Ron Klein, Cameron Davis, Catherine Chalmers, Daniel Reiser, Suzy Sureck, Yo Park, Karen Dolmanisth, Susan English, Oliver Wasow, Catherine Howe, Deborah Kass, Song Xin, Richard Bruce, Sharon Butler, Jill Slaymaker, Terri Amig, Charlotte Schulz, Brenda Zlamany, Jennifer Zackin, Sarah Bliss, Abigail Stern, Brenda Zlamany, Peggy Cyphers, Mauro Zamora, Marilla Palmer, Daniel Wiener, Bill Schuck, Cynthia Robinson, Chuck Agro, Laura Lynch, Gabriella Russomagno, Ed Bisese, Matt Bua, Jill Vasileff, Janet Biggs, Lorrie Fredette, Tânia Pires, Judy Glantzman, J. Henry Fair, Mary Jones, Kim Holleman, Jane Marsching, Ming Fay, Rosa Valado, Nikki Johnson, Sarah Hinckley, Ryan Cronin, Paul Dacey, Kyle Gallup, Amy Caterina, Constance Merriman, Vaughn Bell, Philip Krohn, Andrea Polli & Joe Gilmore, Gary Brewer, John Rolof, Sarah Pedlow, Ruri, Stephen Kaltenbach, Nils-Udo, Samanthan Fields, Ned Kahn, Sylvia Tidwell, Lillian Ball, Mark Andrew Gravel, Karen Rietzel, Therese Lahaie, Mark Brest van Kempen, Joan Perlman, Joan Baron, Alastair Noble, The Canary Project, Jason Houston, John Hitchcock, Jenny Hankwitz, Ulricke Arnold, Nina Dubois, Dianna Cohen, Talia Cotton, James Andrews, Nsumi Collective, Jacki Apple, Annie Kyle, Larry Krone, Nikko Sedgwick, Lewis de Soto, Cary Peppermint, Mardi Burnham, Nathan Goddard, Lawrence Miller, Robin Tewes, Roy Staab, Aleta Wolfe, Federica Matta, Suzanne McClelland, Peter Iannarelli, Nick Lamia, Todd Sargood, Ruth Wallen, Nitin Mukul, Alyce Santoro, Peter L. Johnson, Suzanne Stryk, Raquel Rabinovich, Amy Bassin, Thomas Eller, Jennifer Zackin, Catherine Tirr, Laura Lynch, David Chow, Maxine Henryson, Marika Arapoglou, Christopher Beatty, Christopher Been, Margaret Carey, Kristin Chin, Karen Chubak, Alicia Duque, Lourd Bennett Galvez, Karen Koo, Aubin Norwood, Philip Song, Alison Schuettinger, Claudia Seniro, Claire Snavely, Michelle Tse, Patrick Janssen Toh, Hannah Zingre, Helene Wasserman, Jennifer Timmer, Sarah McCoubrey, Veru Narula, Craig Wickwire, Sheilah Rechtschaffer, Joseph Smolinsky, Suzanne Anker, Janet Faith Farb, Chere Krakovsky, Kim Mayhew, Lael Marshall, Arlene Rush, Norm Magnusson, Gina Vigliarolo, Frie J. Jacobs, Aline Mare, Greg Patch, Rosalind Schneider, Dennis Mcleod, Bill Schuck, Santiago Adeoye, Jason Middlebrook, Kimberley Hart, Mary Miss,

We give thanks to Exit Art for their support. This event is a continuation of our relationship with the Social-Environmental Aesthetic (SEA) program including our participation in The Drop exhibition in 2006 and EPA in 2008.

Amy Lipton and Patricia Watts

Mark Brest van Kempen: A Sustainable Public Art by Patricia Watts

2010-02-06T08:13:00.000-08:00

"Cleaning System" prototype installed at the Headlands Center for the Arts, Marin County, CA, 2000

Since the late 1980s, Bay Area artist Mark Brest van Kempen has produced art that connects people with plant and animal habitat, architecture and infrastructure. His interest is to reveal the social, ecological and historical layers that encompass a given “place.” His early influences growing up in Utah were Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels and Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty. And, although he does not physically shape the land as his medium, his real inspiration has been the pursuit to convey how to live on the land sustainably.

There are a number of artists today concerned with how we interact with nature, and Brest van Kempen is one of a handful that have chosen the long hard road to create “green” public art. His commitment to educating about ecological systems is evident, as after 20 years he has only recently begun to see the fruits of his labor. This is a product of both his dedication to this work and the more recent interest and evolution of public art department directors who are seeking to capture funding for projects via water and transportation infrastructure funding.

In 2000, Brest van Kempen created an indoor wetland prototype entitled “Cleaning System” while in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin (CA). The installation diverted wastewater from a washing machine into a filtration pond of plants, tadpoles and fish to clean and monitor the health of the water. “This piece was part of a series of works to research and develop human infrastructures that can be grafted to natural systems, blurring the distinction between natural and man-made,” stated Brest van Kempen. The excess water flowed outside the building to water exterior plants.

The following year he created another installation at the Headlands entitled Drinking Fountain for People and Plants, a functional fountain designed to return a portion of city water to native plants, filtering the water and sending it back to the sewer clean. In this work, a person takes a drink from the fountain, which then transports the excess water down a diagonal planter, watering plants, thus giving back to nature. This work exemplifies Brest van Kempen belief that, “Taking and giving are automatically intertwined in the same act.”

These two works have been pivotal for the artist’s career and have increased his eligibility for sustainable public art projects. By charting this new territory Brest van Kempen broke ground for visual artists who have primarily shown in galleries and who have created temporal site-specific works with nonprofits in the public sphere, to do more large scale infrastructure artworks.

Ravenna Creek Project, 2002-2009

For two decades watershed groups in Seattle rallied to redirect a creek, naturally fed by springs and runoff, which had been diverted to a sewer line and water treatment plant over fifty years ago. This short-sighted decision unnecessarily treated the creek water, and by 2002, the county stepped up to divert Ravenna Creek back to where it had flowed historically, except now mostly underground. Brest van Kempen was then competitively selected through a national public art RFQ process and was invited to trace this historical and present day Ravenna streambed down a one-mile corridor to Lake Washington, which flows into Union Bay.

The public art works created for the Ravenna Creek Project, which are currently in multiple phases of completion, include an outfall structure and viewing station where the creek enters the pipeline underground from the park; and additional interventions along the sidewalks to the lake including three daylighting vaults, blue demarcation lines and inset spelling ‘Ravenna Creek’ on the sidewalks, and embedded plaques with inset capsules of native seed inside. For this project Brest van Kempen memorialized the existence of Ravenna Creek, working hand-in-hand with the City of Seattle Parks and Recreation and Metro/King County Drainage and Wastewater (Public Art Budget $200,000).

Upcoming Projects

For those of you living in or visiting the Bay Area, the unveiling of Brest van Kempen’s latest public art project in Oakland, Views of the Greenbelt, includes a combination of sculptural viewing devices, strategically placed sculptures of native flora and fauna, and interpretive signage to focus viewers' attention on the history and ecology of the Rockridge-Temescal Greenbelt and Temescal Creek. Funding was allocated by a local measure for Clean Water & Safe Parks passed in 2002, which provided $2.8 million for public art projects pertaining to this measure. This project was competitively commissioned through the City of Oakland’s Public Art Commission in 2005 (Public Art Budget $75,000).

Brest van Kempen was also selected this summer by the City of San Jose's Environmental Services Department (ESD) and the Public Art Program in collaboration with the San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant to create an interpretive artwork as an integrative aspect of the current Plant tours. Some 4,000 visitors each year are invited to consider the issues that impact water conservation to help ensure the safe treatment of 110 million gallons of sewage a day on behalf of 1.4 million residents (Public Art Budget $100,000).

It is projects like these, green sustainable public art, that create what the Oakland Arts Commission considers “social equity . . . which can enhance the educational, recreational and aesthetic aspects of the landscape, adding quality of life and appreciation for the ecology of the land. To make accessible or transparent the processes that provide clean water can help safeguard communities.” The use of public art as a catalyst for community dialogue is a unique and exciting opportunity for the general public, utilities providers, and the art world. Mark Brest van Kempen’s work is subtle, almost invisible in some cases. However, sustainable art is about walking lightly on the land, something that this artist knows how to do very well.

Originally published in the Center for Sustainable Practices in the Arts Quarterly Newsletter September 2009. To purchase the full issue go HERE

ecoartspace fundraising activities 2009-2010

2010-01-31T20:13:00.000-08:00

Cannot believe February is here already. Was meaning to make a post a couple weeks ago to provide an update on the ecoartspace SF Benefit fundraiser in December! We would really like to thank Jessica Resmond and Alan So with ME;D1.ATE who produce the biannual Soundwave Festival in San Francisco. It was a quick email and meeting back in September that prompted our collaborative effort to do a silent auction and performance event to help us both raise money for upcoming programs. This year’s Soundwave Festival has a green sound theme for 2010, so it made sense that we would partner. With only two months lead time to pull it together, we succeeded in bringing in over 60 donations of artworks and ephemera, located an awesome gallery space at Mina Dresden Gallery, attracted approximately 100 attendees, and rallied donations of foods from Marin French Cheese Company, Bi-Rite Market, Terra Savia, Woodbridge Winery, and Paulding & Company Kitchen. The art was inspiring, musical performances moving, and foods very delicious. We were able to raise enough (although modest) to start the new year off feeling like there is still hope in these tough economic times. And, Amy Lipton, Director of ecoartspace NYC, is now underway with plans for an East Coast fundraiser event this Spring. She will be announcing more information soon as plans start to gel (shooting for April/May).

View benefit pictures on Flickr here.

We still have a few artworks available as well here.

Treehugger benefit plug here.

So far this year is promising some exciting shows including The Ins and the Outs an outdoor sculpture exhibition at Rockland Center for the Arts in Nyack, New York opening April 11th; MAKE:CRAFT which opens at the Otis College of Art and Design, Ben Maltz Gallery on October 4th. And, an invitation to participate in the Art Boom Festival in Krakow, Poland in June.

More soon on all fronts.

Artist’s Talk by Kimberley Hart at Mixed Greens Gallery, NYC

2010-01-05T11:17:00.000-08:00

On Saturday December 12, 2009, New York artist Kimberley Hart gave a talk about her recent exhibition Scout at Mixed Greens in Chelsea. The event was co-sponsored by ecoartspace and NYFA.

The works in Scout contemplate specific themes surrounding self-sufficiency, sustainability, observation, labor, cultivation, exploration, defense and tenacity.

Before mentioning any of the artworks in the show, Kimberley began by explaining that her new body of work came out of major life changes involving food and her interest around issues of agricultural sustainability. In the past few years, in an effort to eat healthy locally grown foods, she decided to give up all convenience foods and made a conscious effort to eat mostly organic foods. Kimberley feels that to a large part - many current environmental problems are due to our culture’s worship of convenience. To confront this dependence, Kimberley gave up packaged foods, ate strictly whole foods and eventually consumed only local and sustainably farmed food. She instituted a “no plastic” rule in her home which began with giving up bottled water and proceeded to take out containers, plastic bags and all plastic packaging.

Kimberley was influenced by reading many current popular books on the food revolution such as Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma which led her towards living a more sustainable life. She started urban homesteading, canning, composting, and cutting garbage down to one small bag a week. She joined a CSA, bought only grass fed, pastured meats and stopped eating out or ordering take-out. She is striving to have as small of a footprint as possible and is giving serious thought to starting a farm on a former cattle ranch in the South. This passion about food, sustainability, farming, and stewardship, led Kimberley to meet various people involved with permaculture and the transition movement, environmentalists and social justice advocates. She feels that as an artist she is coming from a different place but can potentially end up with similar and interrelated solutions.

In order to create this new show, Kimberley spent time contemplating a way to integrate her new outlook on life and focus on sustainability and self-sufficiency into her artwork. She decided to continue utilizing narrative and allegory as in her past bodies of work. Through drawing and sculpture, she exposes her alter ego represented as a mischievous, irreverent young girl who is self-reliant but more vulnerable and suspicious than in years past. Though noticeably absent from the work, this girl was once full of sparkles and glitter. She is no longer fantasizing about her hunting prowess or setting traps for inappropriate prey. Instead, we find her hunkered down in an austere outpost with few essentials and a concern for an unknown adversary. There are vestiges of a carefree girlhood, but the tenor has changed—a sense of uncertainty has eroded her daring as she struggles to maintain some bravery in the face of a new, foreboding reality.

The works in the exhibition reveal her alter ego’s surroundings, shelter and possessions. A “bank” holds prized, as well as scavenged, provisions and doubles as a repository for a personal currency and objects to barter in this new world. Beautifully crafted, ominous vultures skulk and spread their wings near a pivotal piece titled, The Death of Sparkle. While Kimberley’s alter ego has proven to be equally prissy and cunning in past exhibitions, she is now overwhelmed by apprehensions and threatened by the malicious marauder responsible for Sparkle’s death.

Fantasy and fine craftsmanship remain hallmarks of her work, but the tone has shifted to reflect a change—both imagined and real—in her environment. There is a marked shift in her alter ego from mischief-maker of the vernal woodlands to a menaced and solitary defender in a dystopic landscape.

“In an allegory of our shared hopes and fears, an itinerant, young heroine and an elusive, predatory force struggle for prominence. Survival for these characters is symbiotic; their lives intertwine in a closed loop of cause and effect where the lonely girl, in the face of a malicious entity and in a degrading environment, maintains an acute sense of optimism through her own perseverance. This dystopian fantasy explores an uncertain future, an existence outside of modern convenience where subsistence is the primary concern. Referencing issues ranging from institutional critique, environmental stewardship, egalitarianism and our shared literary and visual culture, this work of speculative fiction offers a potential outcome to our current socioeconomic crisis.

We are all scouts now.” Kimberley Hart, 2009

Happy New Year from ecoartspace

2010-01-01T20:09:00.000-08:00

From Top Left to bottom Right: David Haley, Emily Brown, Samantha Fields, Christy Rupp, Sant Khalsa, Jason Middlebrook, Joy Garnett, Susan Leibovitz Steinman, and Sandy Gellis.

We are looking forward to some exciting shows and programs in 2010 as we venture into our 11th year working together as a bicoastal environmental art nonprofit. Please check out our website by mid-month to see updates and check back here on our blog for several upcoming posts on our activities in December and some exciting new artists/works we have been keeping an eye on.

Shall 2010 be a turning point for us all in our efforts to help others see the world around them with new eyes.

Tricia Watts and Amy Lipton

ecoartspace fundraising efforts

2009-12-07T13:28:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays from ecoartspace . . . .

On the eve of COP15 we ask for your support!

ecoartspace has been operating as a bicoastal nonprofit platform for artists addressing environmental issues since 1999 (founded 1997 in Los Angeles). In our ten years of programming we have curated 38 exhibitions, 70 programs and have worked with over 400 artists. And, we have collaborated with over 140 organizations. To celebrate our achievements as well as raise money for future programs we recently held a benefit auction in San Francisco on December 4th. This event, although short in planning, was well attended and over twenty works of art were sold to help raise funds for projects planned in 2010. Examples include commissioning artists to create site-specific works in the public sphere, an artist residency, development of an archive, and video editing for taped interviews with ecoartists.

There are more works available for purchase which you can view HERE and which can be purchased online through the end of this year, 2009. We invite you to consider either buying a work of art or making a donation of any size to ecoartspace today HERE.

Thanks for your support!

Patricia Watts, founder and west coast curator

Artists who have donated include: Amy Franceschini, Andrea Polli, Fritz Haeg, Craig Roper, Stephen Kaltenbach, Ned Kahn, Kim Abeles, Samantha Fields, Lisa Adams, Kim Stringfellow, Josh Keys, Nils-Udo, Roy Staab, Christopher Kennedy, Mark Andrew Gravel, Gary Brewer, Aline Mare, Alicia Escott, Judith Selby Lang, Vaughn Bell, Basia Irland, Besty Damon, Abigail Doan, Beverly Naidus, Shai Zakai, Lillian Ball, Robin Lasser and Adrienne Pao, Mark Brest van Kempen, John Roloff, Ed Morris and Susannah Sayler, Tao Urban, Linda McDonald, Christy Rupp, Karen Reitzel, Philip Krohn, Jorge Bachmann, Kim Anno, Sarah Pedlow, Kathryn Miller and Michael Honer, Marksearch, Aviva Rahmani, Virginia Stearn, Ann Rosenthal, Therese Lahaie, Ruri, Raheleh Zomorodinia, Shan Wells, and Seth Kinmont.

Xavier Cortada "Native Flags" at Verge Miami

2009-11-30T14:39:00.000-08:00

In conjunction with ecoartspace, Miami-based artist Xavier Cortada will present a participatory artwork titled Native Flags and invites everyone attending the Verge Art Fair as well as the general public to collaborate in the creation of the work.

Melting polar sea ice has global political powers clamoring to place their flags over the Arctic to control the Northwest Passage shipping lanes and the petroleum and mineral resources beneath the ice. Cortada developed Native Flags as an eco-art project to engage people globally in a reforestation campaign to prevent the polar regions from melting. At home, participants can also plant a native tree next to Cortada’s green flag and ask their neighbors to do the same. Together, they can help to support the regrowth of the planet’s native tree canopies - one yard at a time.

On June 29th, 2008, Xavier Cortada arrived at the North Pole and planted a green flag to reclaim the landscape for nature. The trip was sponsored by New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) as part of Cortada’s larger 90N project. The work addresses global climate change and included the reinstallation of Cortada’s Longitudinal Installation and Endangered World projects as part of a National Science Foundation Antarctic Artist and Writers residency.

Cortada has created art installations at the Earth's poles to generate awareness about global climate change and has developed participatory art projects to engage communities in local action at points in between. Cortada’s work created during his National Science Foundation Antarctic Residency has been exhibited in museums including: Weather Report, curated by Lucy Lippard at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art in 2007, and Envisioning Change, a United Nations Environment Programme-sponsored exhibition which opened in Oslo, Norway in June 2007. Cortada launched the Reclamation Project in 2006 to remind Miami Beach residents and visitors of the island’s origins as a mangrove forest by having over 2500 mangrove seedlings displayed in shop windows across the island. Annually, volunteers plant the seedlings on Biscayne Bay.

Catalina Hotel, 1732 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida

Opening preview reception: Thursday December 3rd, from 6 to 10pm

Friday & Saturday, December 4-5, noon to 8pm

Sunday, December 6th, noon to 6pm

"Isolation is the essence of Land Art" (WDM)

2009-11-20T15:01:00.000-08:00

It has been over 20 years since I was in New Mexico. When I considered why this was, I realized that most of the places I've traveled to for art events in the US have been where CAA, AAM, or AFTA conferences usually take place, like Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, Atlanta, and New York City. I guess a city needs to have at least 1,500 contiguous hotel rooms adjacent to a conference center to host a large conference, which Albuquerque does not have (yet). In general, most people travel to Santa Fe to see the opera, go to galleries and in the last decade to visit Site Santa Fe, an international contemporary art biennial that began in 1995. This is a town that boasts over 250 galleries with under 150,000 residents! With so much focus on the arts, it seems like there should be more of an “art world" presence. Even Lucy Lippard, Nancy Holt, and Bruce Nauman call New Mexico home (out of approximately 1 million people in the entire state). And, it is the home to Walter De Maria’s The Lightening Field.

Last spring I was invited to give a lecture in November at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque by Bill Gilbert, artist, professor and founder of The Land Arts of the American West program (2000). I had seen a call for artists for a LAND/ART New Mexico project in fall 2008 and was curious who all was involved. When the program was formally announced and I saw that they had organized multiple events, exhibitions, site-specific installations, lectures, and plans for a publication, I was very impressed with the scale and proud to be included. The program began in May and will wrap up in November. Over 25 organizations in New Mexico have participated with 516 Arts, Suzanne Barge – Project Coordinator, taking the lead. Formally titled Land Art: Art Nature Community, a collaborative exploration of land-based art in New Mexico, the program has exhibited work by international artists including the Center for Land Use Interpretation, Patrick Dougherty, Andrea Polli (the new Director of the Interdisciplinary Film and Digital Media (IFDM) Program at UNM), Eve Andrée Laramée, Erika Blumenfeld and important art and ecology artists from New Mexico including Basia Irland, William Gilbert, and Catherine Harris (recently appointed Art & Ecology professor at UNM). The list of guest speakers included Rebecca Solnit, Nancy Holt, David Abrams, and a performance and discussion with Laurie Anderson, just to name a few. The program was a herculean effort and is to be commended. I would highly suggest getting a copy of the culminating LAND/ART New Mexico book due out in December including an essay by Lucy Lippard. And, add to that list the recently published book Land Arts of the American West documenting the program of the same name by William Gilbert and Chris Taylor.

One of the highlights of my trip was going to The Lightening Field (TLF). It was on my list of things to do for many years and seemed the right time to do it being in New Mexico for the Land Art program. When I arrived into Albuquerque Airport there was a fresh layer of snow on the ground. Driving to TLF from Albuquerque takes about three hours, south and west towards the Arizona border. In the small town of Quemado you sign in at the DIA Foundation office. Here you leave your car and Robert Weathers, TLF manager, drives you out into the middle of nowhere to a WPA era cabin about 45 minutes away. After checking out the rustic chic accommodations (great sheets/towels and Hudson Bay blankets), and getting to know my cabin mates (Stevie Famulari, Assistant Professor at NDSU and environmental artists, and Paul Socolow, a Bay Area de-employed Land Art aficionado), we three ventured out into the field to take a look. This was Stevie’s second trip to TLF and she was well versed how to experience the work. About an hour before sunset she prompted us to get outside (it was around 30 degrees, expecting to drop below 20 at night). As we walked out into the poles the sunlight was shining bright on the stainless steel tips which were not as tall as I had imagine and lighter and more flexible than I would have thought. The rounded tips looked so sculptural and rocketship like. It took a while to get it, but walking inside of the field of poles is when you feel like it is an artwork, not looking at it from the distance like it is an object. It expands the longer you walk inside the poles, it seems to gain another row and another row as the darkness sets in and the setting sun reflects on the poles. We were walking in mud and snow, which was building up on our shoes while noticing rabbit holes and horses hoof prints along the way. It was a full moon, the sky was clear, although hard to see the poles after the sun had set. In the morning as the sun comes up the poles to the west are most visible, in reverse of last night where the eastern portion of the field was most visible at sunset. TLF was installed September – October in 1977. In fact October 31st, the next morning after staying over night was the 32nd anniversary of TLF and the last day of the season for staying over night until next April.

Factoids:
Stainless steel tubing
400 poles, 220 feet apart
5,280 East/West & 3,303 feet North/South
Tallest pole is 26.72 feet, average height is 20.62 feet
A few of the tallest poles have been replaced due to high winds
Each mile long row contains 25 poles
Total weight 38,000 lbs

In 1974 there was a test field in Northern Arizona (later owned by Virginia Dwan and donated to Dia unassembled in 1996). There were 35 stainless tell poles with pointed tips each 18 feet tall and 200 feet apart. The land was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Burton Tremaine. It resided there from 1974-76, then was moved.

Robert Weathers has been the caretaker since 1980

Green Sight + Sound: A Benefit for ecoartspace Celebrating Ten Years of Art and Ecology Programs & ME'DI.ATE's Soundwave ((4)) Festival 2010.

2009-11-07T09:23:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends and Supporters of ecoartspace:

We are very excited to invite you to our 10 year anniversary celebration in San Francisco!

what
Silent Auction of small works by over 40 environmental artists including affordable ephemera & signed catalogues just in time for the holidays! Artists include: Amy Franceschini, Andrea Polli, Fritz Haeg, Stephen Kaltenbach, Ned Kahn, Kim Abeles, Samantha Fields, Lisa Adams, Kim Stringfellow, Josh Keys, Nils-Udo, Roy Staab, Christopher Kennedy, Mark Andrew Gravel, Gary Brewer, Judith Selby Lang, Vaughn Bell, Basia Irland, Besty Damon, Lea Redmond, Abigail Doan, Beverly Nadius, Shai Zakai, Lillian Ball, Robin Lasser and Adrienne Pao, Mark Brest van Kempen, John Roloff, Ed Morris and Susannah Sayler, Linda McDonald, Christy Rupp, Karen Reitzel, Philip Krohn, Jorge Bachmann, Kim Anno, Sarah Pedlow, Kathryn Miller, Aviva Rahmani, Ann Rosenthal, Therese Lahaie, Ruri, and more (to be updated).

Bay Area foodies unite! We will be serving Wine-Appetizers-Sweets by Terra Savia, Bi-Rite, Marin French Cheese Company, Paulding & Company Kitchen, Woodbridge Winery and other Bay Area purveyors.

And, special live performances by Bay Area's favorite singer/song-writer and Soundwave artist Odessa Chen, Danny Paul Grody (Tarentel, The Drift), electroacoustic sensations Myrmyr and special guests.

where
Mina Dresden Gallery
312 Valencia @ 14th street
San Francisco, California

when
Friday, December 4th, 2009 6pm-9pm
Live Performances at 7pm

Art Auction Preview:
Friday December 4th 12pm-4pm

how
Tickets are $30 in advance and $50 for two, $35 at the door
BUY NOW

IMPORTANT INFO: If you can not attend this event please show your support for ecoartspace by giving a tax-deductible donation through our fiscal sponsor online HERE (be sure to type ecoartspace in the project box). $20, $30, $50 or more would help us to continue our ongoing art and ecology programs in 2010. Or if you prefer to use PayPal use this link below:

ecoartspace
Since 1999, Patricia Watts and Amy Lipton of ecoartspace, have provided a platform for artists who address environmental issues internationally. During this time they have organized 38 exhibitions, over 70 programs, and have worked with over 400 artists. Their total budget has been almost $800,000, of which $280,000 was paid directly to artists for site-specific installations. Their programs have been viewed or attended by more than 200,000 people, and they have collaborated/partnered with over 140 organizations.

SOUNDWAVE ((4)): GREEN SOUND 2010
The fourth season of Soundwave, happening throughout Summer 2010, will be the most adventurous yet. Artists, composers and musicians will explore our sonic connections to the environment investigating the wonders of natural world, and examining environmental responsibility and sustainability through awe-inspiring performances and installations.

ME'DI.ATE
Founded in 1998, ME'DI.ATE is a San Francisco-based art organization creating experiential art through products, exhibitions, and live events. ME’DI.ATE is the mastermind behind the acclaimed Soundwave, the most innovative sound/art/music festival in the Bay Area. Bringing together some of the most compelling sound purveyors from across the sonic spectrum, Soundwave produces experiential performances that challenge the way you see and hear sound and music.

350.org’s International Day of Climate Action at ecoartspace NYC

2009-10-21T07:41:00.000-07:00

On October 24th in conjunction with 350.org’s International Day of Climate Action, ecoartspace NYC will screen 3 films on a rotating schedule between 12 - 6pm.

Eva Bakkeslett's Alchemy: The Poetry of Bread
A poetic evocation on the alchemy of bread brings the act of baking the most basic of staples, into a high art form.

Jacinto Astiazaran & Fritz Haeg
The Story of Mannahatta and the Lenape Edible Estate: Manhattan
As told by Eric Sanderson of the Mannahatta Project.
Ever wondered what New York looked like before it was a city? Welcome to Mannahatta, 1609. Now, after nearly a decade of research, the Mannahatta Project at the Wildlife Conservation Society has un-covered the original ecology of Manhattan.

Lenore Malen & The New Society for Universal Harmony
I Am The Animal That I Am
Narrates the grave threat to the bee population including "colony collapse disorder" from the perspective of 6 Hudson Valley Beekeepers.

ecoartspace is located at 53 Mercer St. between Broome and Grand - 3rd floor in New York City.

ecoartspace NYC fall events

2009-10-18T19:32:00.000-07:00

This fall we have had a whirlwind of events since early September. Time is flying by, the leaves are starting to come down in the Hudson Valley, the temperature is dropping and sadly the gardening season is finished.

The season began with the opening of Down to Earth: Artists Create Edible Landscapes at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Philadelphia on September 12th. This exhibition highlights the growing focus and emergence of “green” principles and sustainability in relationship to food, art, design and agriculture. The exhibition includes six artists or artist teams who created socially engaging interventions in the landscape. Their works are related to growing indigenous food, the healing properties of plants, sustainable agriculture, water irrigation, permaculture planting, recycling of materials and deer grazing, all creating an aesthetic and cultural link between art and cultivation of the land.

Several current popular books and films about food’s relation to sustainability have helped to propel a new generation of public interest in issues related to organic growing, heirloom seeds, eating and purchasing local food, farmers markets and back yard vegetable gardens. Also being investigated in the media are the negative consequences of monoculture planting and factory farming practices, and the inhumane treatment of livestock in industrial agriculture. The economic downturn and rising fuel and grocery prices have also motivated a new focus on sustainability in relation to food.

Many artists have been engaging these important ecological and social issues in the past few years. The Schuylkill Center presented a unique opportunity for artists to interact with the landscape, with its preserved open space and agricultural history. Down to Earth at Brolo Farm, is presented at an abandoned farm site and each of the artists has created a large-scale outdoor work on this four-acre location.

Making artworks with living components such as plants and water takes a vastly different approach than creating or placing traditional objects in the landscape. These art projects are dependent on the unpredictability of weather and forces of nature including animals and insects. The implication of potential damage and risks involved in the works surviving have forced the artists to acknowledge that like gardeners, they are merely collaborators with nature. They took on this complex challenge with skill and with the help of many staff members, volunteers, students and friends.

After six months of hard work on the projects, constant worry about the weather and water resources being shared, we opened to a day long gathering of at least 200 people. The weather forecast was rain for the entire day – but miraculously the rain held off until just after 6pm when the opening was over. I led a tour group of each project beginning with Joan Ban kemper’s Willa, A Medicinal Herb Garden. Joan spoke about the significance of herbs historically, how they were used as medicine by healers and midwives for hundreds of years but were discouraged in the past century due to modern medicine frowning on the practice. She made the timely connection to our present day health care crisis by encouraging visitors to take a preventative approach to wellness by learning about the healing properties of plants and distributed an informational color brochure she had produced for the occasion. Titled Willa after the Paleolithic fertility figure Venus of Willendorf, Joan’s fifty-ft. garden is modeled after this archaic form. Contained inside the figure are seven circles representing Hindu chakras or energy centers from root to crown. Each chakra is planted with herbs and flowers that can respectively lead to healing for that area of the body. (Joan’s printed handout makes the connection of each chakra in the human body – and a list of associated healing plants.) The overall design of this project also reflects on the 1970’s work of Feminist artist Ana Mendieta, well known for her Silueta series of figurative Earthworks which involved carving her imprint directly into mud or sand.

Next on the tour was Stacy Levy speaking about her sculptural fence installation Kept Out. This work provides an opportunity to investigate how the deer alter their own edible landscape. The deer's meal choices affect the growth of the forest and the field: their grazing results in fewer seedlings of native tree, shrub and herbaceous species. Due to human influence, deer populations are out of balance and destroying the sustainability of their own food sources in the field and forests. Stacy created two versions of this piece, the first was a prototype on her own woodland site in mid-PA where she worked out the pattern of criss-crossing tall blue metal poles as a deer fence. Stacy spoke about the ways in which deer are ravaging the landscape, eating everything in sight – the end result of which means that far fewer trees ever make it to maturity beyond deer grazing height. This has serious implications and consequences for the future of unprotected woodlands and forests. Since we no longer have large predators for the deer (other than humans in cars and deer hunters in season), they are over-populating. Stacy brought up the fact that we all love to see deer in the landscape and equate seeing them with “nature”, but the irony being that the deer by consuming all their resources will leave nothing left to eat for future deer generations (sound familiar?). The larger unanswered question is what to do about the continuing growth in human population that leaves less and less room for deer and other wild species to roam and eat.

Following Stacy was a water leveling demonstration by artist Knox Cummin. His functioning rainwater collection sculpture, titled Not Drain Away provided the water for Ann Rosenthal and Steffi Domike’s American Roots Garden. The three artists decided to collaborate early on in the project, which worked out beneficially for all. Since it rained for a solid month in June, the garden thrived but later in dry, hot August we had to resort to hand watering. Not Drain Away takes the shape of a twenty-ft. square room and is built out of wood attached to the roof of the existing farmhouse. It is complete with rain barrels, piping and an irrigation system. The water collection system is gravity powered and uses no external energy to operate. By collecting rainwater, there is no additional load on the municipal water supply or well water. This elaborate sculpture combines craftsmanship, art and design, proving the case that art can be both functional and aesthetic.

Contained inside the structure of Not Drain Away, is a vegetable garden by Ann Rosenthal and Steffi Domike (Pittsburgh, PA). Titled An American Roots Garden, it includes foods common to early America, including Native American crops and those brought by settlers and immigrants. These include corn, squash, and beans (commonly known as the "three sisters"), a variety of potatoes and tomatoes, beets, carrots, sunflowers, marigolds, and herbs. The garden is laid out in a quilt-type pattern that provides a structure to consider the evolution and story of five staple crops and how food cultures are lost or preserved. Ann and Steffi harvested carrots, beets, corn and potatoes the day of the opening. Their garden reached its peak in August both in terms of abundance and beauty. The artists spoke about reconnecting to the past in the use of a “kitchen garden” and stressed the importance of holding on to our individual cultural histories in relationship to passed down food traditions and family recipes. The artists also created a kid’s placemat to hand out at the opening with a word puzzle and kitchen garden quilt for coloring.

We then moved the tour out to a large former crop field on the site to speak with artist Susan Leibovitz Steiman. Her garden Urban Defense was a tour de force collaborative project. Susan lives in the S.F. Bay Area, so her project involved local participation from friends, volunteers and student assistants Susan hired from the Philadelphia Uni versity Sustainable Design Program, led by Fern Gookin. Susan spoke about creating the garden with techniques of permaculture, a planting method that mimics nature’s principle of combining diverse compatible plantings that conserve labor, water and soil, to produce abundant healthy food. The forty-ft. square installation has at its heart a five-sided permaculture urban forest orchard, contained within a raised bed structure built using locally culled household salvage. The title Urban Defense and the form of the installation refer to Philadelphia’s myriad columned public buildings, and to the political strength of the U.S. Defense Department’s Pentagon. Ecologically, Urban Defense honors another American symbol, the apple—its five seed chambers of diverse seeds can create an entire sustainable food forest. Urban Defense includes more than a dozen varieties of trees, perennial bushes and annuals whose fruits have been shared and donated to local food banks.

The last stop on the far side of the same field was to Sim on Draper’s Habit at for Artists Collective. The work titled Drawn to / Drawn from the Garden consists of a mini art studio, potting shed, and seven vegetable/flower gardens. The collective of artists in this project included Todd Sargood, Odin Cathcart, Jeff Bailey and Cathy Lebowitz. Draper spoke about his childhood experience of gardening with his father and how that joint activity created a neutral space for otherwise difficult communication. He also related how his interest in shed-making stems from that same period of time, where he saw how the backyard shed could become a place for contemplation, tinkering and creative projects. The HFA Collective has to this date constructed 20 different habitats (sheds) in various sites around the Hudson Valley, NYC and Philadelphia. This project aims to encourage backyard food growing, recycling of materials and the re-purposing of abandoned sites for gardening. Local artists and school groups were invited to collaborate and to adopt two of the garden plots, which provided opportunities for engagement, the shed siding consists of art panels by school children.

Down to Earth: Artists Create Edible Landscapes is on view in Philadelphia through November 28th. Read a review of the exhibition in the Philadelphia Inquirer by art critic Edith Newhall here.

In order to bring the creativity and huge amount of labor involved in making Down to Earth available to a New York audience, a documentation form of the exhibition opened at ec oartspace in NYC on October 3rd. The same artists from the Philadelphia show are exhibiting photographs, prints and an herbal apothecary by Joan Bankemper. Also included are several additional artists’ projects, a video by Eva Bakkeslett, Alchemy: The Poetics of Bread; a video by Jacinto Astiazaran & Frit z Haeg, The Story of Manahatta and the Lenape Edible Estate Manhattan; a film by Lenore Malen & The New Society for Universal Harmony, I Am The Animal That I Am; Eve Mos her’s mini green roof modules, Seeding the City; Andrea Polli & Chuck Varga’s, Hello Weather! an outdoor data collecting weather station; Andrea Reynosa & Kevin Vertrees, Sky Dog Projects, time lapse videos of corn and hops on their farm with a hops pillow by Donna Sharrett, and Christy Rupp’s food packaging, New Labels for Genetically Engineered Food.

The exhibition will remain on view at the ecoartspace NYC office through November 21st at 53 Mercer Street in Soho, NY. Hours are Saturdays 12 – 6pm and by appointment.

On Sunday October 4th, performance artist Chere Krakovsky presented her work, Mothers and Daughters at Solar One in the Habitat for Artists shed that has been situated there since July 10th when it left ecoartspace on Mercer Street.

Chere’s performance explored how one generation offers its lessons to the next, both learned and unspoken. In the first part of the performance she honored her Eastern European grandmother by washing her laundry by hand the same way her grandmother did a century ago. She then hung it out to dry on a clothes line connected to the Habitat/shed with the East River as background. Following this Chere invited her 86 year old mother, Dorothy Krakovsky to join her in the shed to teach Chere to sew by hand, which she in turn was taught to do by Chere’s grandmother. In this piece the everyday and the creative co-exist. The shed served as the home location for the everyday tasks of doing laundry and sewing. Visitors were invited to participate in the sewing lesson or share in conversation about what has been offered/handed down to them from their mothers. The artwork of mother, daughter and grandmother filled the interior of the habitat during the performance. Chere’s performance work revolves around her ever-changing notions of home, it’s location and meaning.