Eco Art and Other Impossibilities

artist sketch of "Bug Cinema"

I am belatedly reviewing an "eco art show", "Whale Oil To WholeFoods" that took place this past summer in two locations in Greene County, New York. I am reviewing it now because, I have time, the curators are friends of mine, the show was a good example of well-intentionedness gone awry, and I don't like to step on any toes but I don't see that anyone else on the web or otherwise has seen fit to honestly assess the effort and intent that went into this show and efforts like it. 

The show took place this past summer, and was billed as an "Eco Art Show".  The curators hoped to put together a collection of art that reflected various perspectives on the ecological issues that we are faced with, and to that end, even invited artists from other countries to participate.  I thought that the first version of the show at the Greene County Council on the Arts was interesting and even contained work that I wanted to own; the dust bunnies created by  Suzanne Proulx. Ms Proulx made believable life sized bunnies  out of dust collected and somehow transformed into a sculptural material. The bunnies all look like they are snuffling along quietly. Now if you ask me, that is eco art. Taking something that nobody really has much use for and using a minimum of energy and resources to transform it into something that feels compelling and real.

Due to a certain amount of personal involvement, I was too aware of some of the extremes that went into mounting the second leg of the show that was exhibited at the Agroforestry Center.  James Brady was invited from Ireland to participate in the show. He had proposed creating a "Bug Cinema".  So here we have the first red flag. He flew here from Ireland using his share of the 44 tons of fuel necessary for one trans-Atlantic flight. Once he was here, he was assigned a driver (my 19 year old son) as James did not drive. Second huge red flag. The fact that he was coming to a rural area and did not drive, but could not stay right where he was mounting the "Bug Cinema" created a situation where he had to be driven. This actually resulted in twice as many miles being driven than if had been able to drive himself, as my son had to drive the 7 miles to go get him, drive him to his destination, drop him off, and then drive home himself. Then the whole diesel expenditure occurred in reverse to get him home at night. On other days, they drove even further, to go rent special solar lighting in a town 20 miles away, or to go buy fabric for the project in a different town 20 miles in a different direction.

I am not picking on James Brady or the curators. I must clarify right now that I am only writing about this (and risking upsetting people I really admire!) because we are all faced with ethical decisions about  expending our share of trans-atlantic jet fuel in order to see our 8o year old mother-in-laws or take our children to see the Parthenon, etc. This eco-art issue just exemplifies choices we all make every day.....   I think it is important for all of us to acknowledge when we are making a mistake even when we are trying to "do the right thing". It is often difficult to know which is the "right thing'.  For example, in the grocery store, when the cashier asks if you want your groceries in a plastic or paper bag, what is the right answer? I'm sure I don't know unless it is "I brought my own bag", but even that might not be right as it may be made of plastic at least in part that required some sort of terrible pollution in it's manufacture, or pillaging of natural resources....  

I also think it is possible for one person to be imported from far away, at the price of their share of the 44 tons of fuel, and maybe more, but the message that they bring must be inspiring, thought-provoking, and big. Brady's Bug Cinema was not. I'm not sure what sort of experimentation Brady may have done before attempting the project here, but the evening that the bugs were supposed to succumb to the attraction of the solar lights in order to perform some antics for an expectant art audience, two terrible things became clear. Brady's solar lamps were not bright enough, even once they had been sort of jury-rigged by my electrician husband (who is thankfully not an artist but a person who knows how to make electrical things work) when they failed to work. The second terrible thing was that Brady had missed an obvious lighting solution for his cinema: the all night signage lights for the Agro Forestry Center that we all filed past after over an hour of trying to imagine that some sort of Bug Cinema was occurring in Brady's dim set-up in the woods. The moths and bugs were too busy  in the hot exciting lights of the AgroForestry signage to go looking for Brady's unchartered and unpromising pitiful solar lighting situation. And the Agroforestry signage lighting would have cost the Arts Council and the environment nothing as it was an existing lighting condition.

When I was a student in undergraduate school, we subjected ourselves and everything around us to scathing critique. I think that is healthy and I miss it. Not everything is wonderful and not everything makes sense. IF more people voiced a critical opinion it might lead to greater thought going into projects before they are mounted...Another important aspect of criticality is that it can be paralyzing. I imagine that at some level, Rupp and Potash who curated the show, could sense that Brady's contribution was requiring a bit too much fuel  to qualify as a good eco-art idea, but they had a deadline to meet and lots of other things in their lives to take care of, and they just went ahead, hoping that his final piece would make it all worthwhile. 

Many of the most critically astute artists that I went to undergraduate school with, eventually stopped making art. A truly critical and intelligent perspective can lead to inertia. I guess I feel that in this case, inertia might have been a better approach than the literal slurping up of fossil fuel to a make cinema that very few bugs attended.

Competing for Food With The White-faced Hornet

While I am accustomed to timing my raspberry-picking to coincide with the honeybees' nap-time (early morning or evening) I find a new competitor out on the raspberry bushes this year...the white-faced hornet. My 13 year old son who knows about such things, has assured me that the sting of the white-faced hornet is really vicious. So far, I have continued to exude a zen-like calm as I pick, so that we are shoulder to shoulder in the bushes....both extracting what we need without altercation....

the "Free Portraits"

I received a local Arts council grant this year to undertake a "free Portraits" project. (funds made possible by the Decentralization Program of the New York State Council on the arts) My idea was to invite the general public to submit throw away objects to me with a photo of someone whose portrait they want painted on the object. I made a brochure about the project that I distributed throughout the summer, largely through "Commission boxes" installed in the public library and at the Agroforestry Center.

 I was excited to see when I got back from my summer travels that I had several submissions in the "Commission Box" in the Catskill Library. I am finding that there are twists and turns to working with the public that of course I did not anticipate. Several people submitted objects, but no photo. Most of the submissions came with phone numbers and no email, which is my chosen way to communicate. So today I created a form letter that I will send out by regular mail to let all the participants know that the painting of the portraits is underway.....

I completed the first portrait largely in the Greene County Council on the Arts gallery where the project was installed as part of the Whale Oil Show in July. I set up my easel and painted right in the window of the gallery at set times twice a week. I completed the first portrait, which is pictured here....Rob aiming a gun painted on top of an exploded can of spray insulation! This was a creative submission on his part, though it may fall short as an actual "portrait" as his face is not that easy to make out. He came to my studio during the local studio tour last week and did not realize that he would get to keep the portrait. he had the idea that I should sell it as part of my body of work!

I am nearing completion on the second portrait which consists of a very cute baby girl painted on a wooden serving tray. This has been a challenging painting assignment as the baby's face is proportionally very different from an adults and I have had to keep increasing the height of that immense forehead and the distance between the eyes, etc. It still is not enough of a likeness for me so I will continue working on it this Sunday....

More to come! For now, I must address the form letters and then correspond with a few "submitters" by email so that they all know I am working on it!

The Country of the Present Moment

Unmitigated profusion

On a late afternoon whim in between bringing in laundry, feeding the chickens and starting dinner, I gathered sunflowers and put them in a vase. Total and complete pleasure flooded through me. I am aware of how lucky I am to be able to concentrate for a few minutes on the vase of flowers, blocking out the blankets airing from flea infestation, the weeds over running the patio, the peeling paint on the house, the bills, the need for a new furnace, my family's lack of health insurance, etc etc etc etc....

I 

Momentary Bliss

Tonsil mucous and other things you did not know you had to worry about....

Worry collage

So when I woke up on Monday (yesterday) , I made coffee and allowed various concerns and projects to slowly sharpen into focus in my mind. There was the note my 16 year old son had left late the night before to wake him up as he had grown increasingly concerned about these strange white blisters on his throat, there were dental visits for myself and the same son scheduled for later that day, there was my oldest son in  Florida in Hurricane Issac's path, there was the decision about wether to allow my two teen sons to play soccer in the homeschool league which entails a heroic amount of driving for the parent (me), there were the two drawings that need to be completed by Thursday at the latest, and there were the class descriptions due at the college I teach at as classes start next Tuesday. There were some other concerns sort of out of focus in the back of my mind, but I'd say these were the primary ones that I felt I needed to address that particular day.

So I sat down at the computer and checked the path of the hurricane. It seemed to be missing the Sarasota area, though each "weather map" illustration pictured it differently. I quickly checked and found no headlines about Sarasota under water or art students found floating. I then googled the white ulcers on my other son's throat and found alarming warnings to see a doctor immediately as the throat could close up and breathing could cease, and on the other hand, home remedies such as gargling with salt  water. Feeling no further ahead, I decided I better at least make sure he was still breathing so I went upstairs and looked in on him. It reminded me of when the kids were infants and I would check that they were still breathing. He was; only he was a lot bigger than an infant. Next, I went back downstairs and pretty efficiently typed up the syllabii for the classes I was teaching.

By noon, my world had been rocked by the the dentist telling me I needed a root canal and there was an appt available tomorrow. I felt obligated to take it as future Tuesdays would require me to be teaching. Simultaneously, the 16 year old was now very worried about the mysterious ulcers. I had a look at them. We phoned an alternative health friend who suggested that it could be yeast. We phoned the doctor and made an appt to come in that day once we had phoned the dentist and cancelled the dental appt.

We spent a long time first waiting in the little examination room for the student doctor. He asked lots of questions. He was supposed to guess what it was and then the doctor would confirm or contradict his guess. He left the room without enlightening us. When the doctor finally came in, he was as friendly as ever. He has a merry face. He looked over the notes, examined my son's throat, asked a couple more questions and then calmly explained that the little white things were mucous off of the tonsils. Not everyone manifests them as sticky globs that bother them, but everyone has it! I asked the student doctor if he had guessed correctly, and he smiled and said that basically he had, but that he didn't know the name of it. My son had been complaining about stuff in his throat for 2 weeks or so. (We rarely rush to the doctor) The doctor explained that it was not live flesh and he tried to scrape one of them off to show us, but my son's gag reflex was not having it. He recommended salt and water gargling, and that if we were really bothered we could go to an ear, eye, nose, and throat specialist. I reminded him that we had no health insurance and  I stated that Iw as pretty sure we would be able to deal with it just fine, now that we knew what it was.

We went home, relieved. I felt a little foolish for going to the doctor, but at the same time, the peace of mind was wonderful. later that night, my son came triumphantly down the stairs bearing the three nodules pictured above. He had pried one out, and coughed out the others.

The root canal did not hurt at all, but the novacaine has not worn off yet.

"Crackers" about Vacation

Early morning ocean

     In my 5th official week of vacation; weeks only broken by a 5 day stint of teaching 3-7 year old "sprouts" who mostly are already very accomplished "artists",  I enjoyed the company of my family from Virginia visiting our NC beach house. We frolicked on the beach and played crazy games like one  called "Things" each evening. It was fun except that I had to refrain a bit from kitchen activity, as the guests don't find baking in August in an un-air-conditioned house an acceptable activity. I, on the other hand, subscribe to my dear friend Jessica's theory which is that if it is already a hot day, turning the oven on doesn't make a whole lot of difference. Anyway, I restrained myself to 2 loaves of bread, some broiled fish, and a peach cobbler while they were there.
   As soon as they were gone (and after I returned from a little jaunt down to Florida) I baked the crackers pictured above. Good crackers (and by "good", I mean crackers without hydrogenated oil and corn syrup, and other harmful ingredients) are expensive and can vanish quickly from the pantry shelves, so I had wanted to try making them from scratch for awhile. They were incredibly easy as the recipe in "how To Cook Anything" had promised and they are delicious, if a little softer in texture than most commercial crackers.
    I have a sneaking suspicion that my relatives find my desire to cook things like this somewhat ludicrous. I can just hear my sister saying, "I'll go buy you a box of crackers if that's what you want". She's missing the zen of creating each moment as much as possible. Yes, there can be zen in reading ingredients on the packages in the Food Lion and searching the aisles for the rare appearances of actual food, but to me, that's a more difficult route to oneness with the universe.

Poppy seed crackers

Harry's Barn Fight

site of former barn

So we came back from being away for 3 weeks, and our friend Harry had done it! He had taken down the huge hulk of falling down barn that graced our yard and loomed over our driveway.

Now, when I go out the door, I do a double take, pausing for a second to recognize the absence of the lurching, sinking, relic. I pause for a second to readjust my vision as it roams large across the barn foundation and on out to the new little red barn and the apple orchard..... no longer trapped close up by the decaying side of the barn.

How did Harry do this? In his younger days, he was a bull fighter. So it sounds like he literally climbed onto this barn and used a chainsaw, crow bars, a small fork lift, and brute force to reduce the thing to submission. He described using the forklift to fork his assistant up out of the hole in the floor when he fell in. He described using the forklift to gently sort of shake the roof loose from it's supports and then the amazing earthquake-like KABOOM with a fallout of dust when the roof released and fell to the ground. he said he used the chainsaw to cut the huge heavy roof into four pieces and it was when the last piece fell that Harry went with it. He showed us the hole in his arm from a nail. And he said he'd went through 3 pairs of jeans sliding down the barn and wearing holes out in the pants. I wish I had taken a video of Harry telling about it. He stood strong and tanned by the sun, an older man, about seventy I think. He always wears a hat, and he would pause in his story-telling to remove his hat and wipe a kerchief across his graying head of hair. He tells a really good story. At one point he turned his face to the sky, shut his eyes, and extended his arms outwards. I can't remember which part of the tale he was telling, but I'll never forget how he stood there in the hot late afternoon sun for a second, making sure he conveyed the drama of what he had experienced with that old barn.

He is theoretically selling the salvageable wood on. He says that all I owe him is a bottle of wine. I'm trying to figure out what sort of bottle of wine could possibly repay Harry for this herculean effort. Maybe wine that comes with a delicious dinner? Maybe a few cases of wine? Maybe wine when he least expects it?

I admire Harry for being able to do that huge job, and to have done it so cheerfully. To him, it was another adventure. To us, it was an overwhelming problem that we could not address.