Intro Art & Ecology

2010-08-18T15:12:00.000-07:00

first assignment for making

2010-02-01T04:57:00.000-08:00

touch organism movement network

Object One:
Due 2/18
at the scale of touch, create an ecology.

bring your object to class in your pocket.

you may only display your object by handing it secretly to another person in the class.

we will pass around the objects silently until they return to their owner.

we will then discuss what we understand about each object

be prepared to turn in your object and a digital copy of it

2010-01-24T13:21:00.000-08:00

Hi catherine, am i blogging in the right place. My title still says art and ecology. just testing thanks. jennifer

for laurie lange

2009-12-17T08:52:00.001-08:00

_______________________________________
ON walking practice

Our other projects introduced meaty material to chew on but for me walking practice took the cake. This kind of practice can be done in two distinctly different ways. One was clearly laid out in our assignment----create a rule for what to note, quantify the amount and kind of activity involved. I found the other way butting into the formulaic approach: more a dreamtime, a way to be in metaphor with the beings of the natural world. Walking to be with Earth's tribes---- Pinon, Juniper, Pack Rat, Rock and Bee. Walking practice is rich. Thanks, Catherine, for an introduction to it.

In an ecological art practice I think it's important to plumb our relationship with the natural world alongside measuring and quantifying how we're there. I question whether some of the practices I've seen portrayed as ecological walking practice present the right sort of message. For instance the guy who walked back and forth in a line til he'd made his mark on the land, worn the land to bare dirt where there was vegetation. Artists make marks, it's our stock in trade. But what is the environmental validity of a walking practice that creates denuded land? In ecological art, don't we need to think about creating a practice that offers both ourselves and our audience a way to be WITH the land and not impose ON the land?

More and more this distinction between being with the land rather than on it seems necessary to the sustainability we seek. We've already made and make more than enough marks on her, outside of “environmental art”, on a massive and damaging scale. If our intention in ecological art is to foster a consideration of ecological imperatives, we as artists need to speak to this softly and not holler “look Ma, I made marks!”.

If we weere to diagram what I'm suggest as a guideline for evaluating how ecological a walking practice is we would have on the questionable side a thick black line between 2 points made from many footsteps being down on the same ground, and on the other little dashed lines where individual footsteps each time step in a different place on slightly different routes at each pass, so the imp[act on the ground is never more than a footstep once on any patch of ground. That would be an ecologically sound way to walk repeatedly between 2 points.

for laurie lange

2009-12-17T08:51:00.001-08:00

Guggenheim fellow Michael Berman offers a gallery full of lovely pictures of his walks in the middle of nowhere. These are carbon pigment prints, and the spectrum of textures and shades of grey is rich. The landscape shots are of a piece with the southwestern landscape-as-scenic-icon oeurve. It's a plentiful oeurve. As lovely as Berman's landscape images are---and they truly are lovely---I can't honestly say I think they contribute anything new, except perhaps to point a bit more pointedly to the beauty of and need to preserve our extreme southwestern landscapes, the ones ranchers tend to size up with an assessment such as, “that land could grow a lot o' head”.

Berman also adopts the pictorial idiom of the abandoned object---a TV without innards in the window of an long uninhabited stucco building. We also have a lot of this oerve. They mean less to me, personally, than the landscape lionized as icon: gorgeous landscapes fetchingly presented offer a place for the mind's eye to inhabit, but is there really something in a gutted television to lionize? Such images hold my attention for a minute hinting at something profound in the cultural detritus, but I'm unable to find anything behind that momentary surface tension. It seemed a mistake for 3 images of this sort to be among the few chosen for inclusion as larger prints, 18 x 24 or so, on the wall opposite the couple hundred 8” x 8” prints. Several more landscapes to roam in at that size would have been my choice for enlargements on display.

The most compelling of Berman's images are the handful of closeups of animal life. Rattlesnakes curled peaceably in the middle of a cliff notch ( and some rattlers are this pacific), the remains of rodents and birds skeletonized by their desert habitat. The mummified wildlife speaks volumes about the meteorological extremes our grasslands encompass: inland oceans drenched in solar exposure, whipped bone dry by winds, the creatures both taken down and preserved by the extremes of the place they haunt. One in particular caught my eye: a wasps' nest protruding from the empty space inside a mummy of ?squirrel? or ?rabbit? or? Not possible to identify the animal, nose turned aside toward 2 leaves on the sand as if to speak to them in its state as spirit. Though the image is a bit buried in grey tones, the content here over-rides the greyness. This is one of those visuals to come back to and explore for a long time without losing interest. Some images hold up under prolonged scrutiny. This one is of that sort. I pray for our wild neighbors these days when I see and hear them, and these pictures moved me to that prayer.

Apparently Berman walks at random for days on end to capture his shots. Having just completed our walking piece, and finding nothing especially new about his images per se, I left the gallery thinking that I'd like to have seen his walking practice included somehow in the work. The places he's walked are truly an oceanic subject and the picture plane here embodies so much: auditory vastness, topographic and environmental mysteries, elemental and wild power that goes beyond carbon pigment. Walking practice is both an activity to take us deeper and a challenge to convey in an artform. I'd love to see what Berman might do with an inclusion of how he walks alongside or in his prints.

Sllllooooolow cities

2009-12-14T22:04:00.000-08:00

Slow cities reading seemed to jump around. yes it is a good cause but the article was restless.
not slowly.
Yet.. the concept of enjoying each moment as it comes is not new.
Very much a part of Asian thought.

How did USA get so behind? That is what I don't get. It seems that life just kinda went on while this country was 'busy making other plans.'

I would like to live in a slow way. I feel guilty if I drive slowly and now perhaps I can change that around to being part of the neighborhood pace program.
I am grateful the movement is there. And yet, the comment inside the article is telling.. that cities who commit to being slow and who get added to the list fill up with tourists and become not slow.
This would seem true as I googled images and many of them turned up as tourist advertisements. It would seem that citta slow can be a double edged sword. But -I am encouraged that this movement is gaining momentum ..slowly.

reading Las gaviotas

2009-12-14T21:16:00.000-08:00

o but this is not an elegy. I am glad I read about the trees first.What a lovely solstice present.
It was so hopeful! I too want to go there! Really. I would like to be immersed in a culture who is trying. To live with people who play music. To invent things that would help. To honor the trees and the life which has grown with them. It is remarkable indeed that this green world is existing inside the country whose notion I had of guerilla_US Drug cartel world police force violencia. As if just because it can.
often i return home disgruntled. after reading Las Gaviotas I had insight as to why.
It is driving around Albuquerque that does it. The alienation. Makes me irritable and lonely.
So contrary is the story of what can happen if whole communities come together and look for other ways. maybe it is the scale of the community also?

The elegy piece was full of grey scale and emotions unearthed with the trash heaps
denied. There is not much to say I think. I have from this the smell and feel of my home town and a particularly desolate piece of road that led to the dump.
I wanted to shoot rats there when I was little. But my mother wouldn't let me.

Now the rats I want to shoot are the demons that despise hope.
Who tell me that it will never be different than driving around Albuquerque looking for things that I 'need'

The first image that came when I googled elegy is this painting of a woman mourning over a pedestal_Greek column that has flowers twining around it. 'Elegy'by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Interesting that her pedestal is sneakily be- flowered. As if even in lament we put forth something that we can live with .. after all.

2009-12-13T14:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday
21 cigarettes a day.
147 a week, I see.
7,042 a year give or take a few.
$4.80 a day up in smoke.
$33.60 a week blown away.
$1,750 give or take a dime or two;
Departed from my bank
Today
400 steps or more I walk so I do not inhale.
8,400 step a day; I will not be blown away.
$1,750 in the bank in one year,
A cruise perhaps?
A walk about???
For I am stronger;
More now than yesterday.

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-09T09:04:00.001-08:00

I wanted to be sure and tell everyone happy holidays. It has been such a pleasure to get to know everyone within the virtual "walls" of this classroom. It has been thought-provoking and has made me do some serious reevaluating of my studio practices and my life habits. Thanks Catherine, for providing such a wonderful forum to grow within!

Lois

slow

2009-12-03T11:49:00.000-08:00

Have to say, reading about the speeding struck a chord in me, not harmoniously, as I had just received a speeding ticket....in the mail. That's a reminder of city life when you don't even have a human being writing you tickets any longer. I can't sweet talk an envelope. I decided that I would aim to drive like the Dalai Lama is in the passenger seat. I'm sure he likes music really loud.
When I went to Portland the first time, I fell in love with the transit system.What an odd thing to fall in love with, but larger lanes for bicycles than cars!?!?!? Bike racks everywhere, riding on the max, and even renting a car for the day was only $26. It takes a lot of stress off of people, when they don't have to worry about their car being broken into or broken down, the raising insurance prices as a result to drunk driving, ridiculous accidents and gas stores on every corner. I wonder how much stress cars alone causes the average Albuquerqian.
I also enjoyed, in Portland, that at the amazing farmer's market, the coffee was all brewed drip while you wait and in coffee shops it was all french pressed. There is something to slowness.
I wonder what finals are like in CittaSlow.

Response to "Cities"

2009-12-02T21:21:00.000-08:00

The slow cities sound wonderful, almost like a fictional fairy tale compared with the constant go of my life. The descriptions of Bra remind me of the lifestyle in Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises." -A little too romantic? I hope to one day enjoy this lifestyle but even as I read this Im "multitasking" by assisting with a "see n' say." It seems as though city planners over here should read this, even a fake "village atmosphere" sounds great. Ugh cars! I'm must agree are horrible, I find myself to have a horrible temper as soon as I enter my car, its crazy! No where else do I get so angered or find myself against humanity than when it comes to driving. Even parking at my apartment is troublesome, I constantly hold grudges against my neighbors who can't park. That was a great read, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I long for a slower life, eventually.

Citta Slow - a response

2009-12-02T07:16:00.000-08:00

The movement is limited to towns with less that 50,000 inhabitants. Too bad for that - Albuquerque does not meet the requirement. But the concept of Citta Slow can be applied to life within an urban setting. A Citta Slow within a city.

“...a slow city is more than just a fast city slowed down...A Slow City asks the question: Does this improve our quality of life? If the answer is yes, then the city embraces it." We do not have to wait for someone to tell us to do this. While I am already adhering to some of the principles, I can see where there is room to expand my way of thinking about all aspects of life. Living in a rural environment, I treasure the days where I don't have to go into the city. We make an effort to support our local businesses since the true cost is not really the stickers on the products for sale.

I had not really thought about this phrase: “In the modern world, speeding up is the most common form of civil disobedience.” The thought of being a lawbreaker is not pleasant, yet I just recently received a speeding-photo ticket, realizing that I don't remember speeding through that intersection. Yet the photo is undeniable proof of the infraction.

for laurie lange

2009-11-30T12:05:00.000-08:00

On Beauty ( the zen garden piece)

Enjoyed this essay on the garden, with it’s mélange of the wild and untrammeled along with the measured planning of garden paths. It’s a subject dear to my heart as a gardener, and so interesting to hear what another gardener thinks and how she sees.

There are some choice quotes here:
“Every garden worth its salt becomes paradise by being both a safe refuge from the madness of the world and a field of action within the cacophony of this very world.”
“Consult the genius of your place in all things and plot paradise with every breath as you garden.”
“Don’t just consider your own joy at the surprise lily fragrance: think of the delight of the ball-headed cabbages as well.” ---I especially like this conceit about the cabbages.

And splendid advice for drylands dwellers:
“If you live in the desert, please don’t replumb paradise and create acres of emerald lawn and sunken water gardens on arid land. “

…a lesson we still need to pay more attention to in New Mexico. Among landscape customers, there’s been rather a surfeit of folks wanting water features in the last decade. Understandable, how do we quench our thirst for the refreshment of water here, its sounds, and those verdant colors not plentiful here that water promotes? I’ve come up with some solutions to that question; we need a lot more to assuage varied tastes.

And I concur with this gardener in her comment that how the garden is marked out and defined is of primary importance. I learned this thoroughly in one of my New Mexico gardens. It was in an old cattle corral, below a windmill and a “dirt tank” (the term ranchers use for a pond by the windmill) that had gone to grasses. There was a distinct layout there already with the enclosure of the corral, but I planted orchard trees outside the corral, and found myself perplexed about where my garden was, until I fenced around the whole, orchard and garden combined. Then the weeds extending in all directions no longer called me to attention. I knew what to tend and what not to; the fence provided a way to delineate where active attention was required and where attention could be of a more contemplative sort, unmoved by any need to perform garden tasks. The end of that confusion was a distinct relief.

There is also a visual energy flow to be mindful of in garden layout. Even if the garden is enclosed, it’s useful to create a visual pathway out, The Way Out. This is where and how the garden joins the world, and how we, in the paradise we’ve carefully nurtured, find spatial reflections of within and beyond, of safety and venture, for all the things we may be musing on when we go to the garden. Here in Albuquerque, I especially try to find this for people with a view of Sandia---and especially for the watermelon moment at sunset when she blushes all-out red.

Farmer in Chief

Michael Pollan hits a lot of nails on the head. He has done so in this letter to Obama. I like the idea of calling the changes we need in fod production solar farming; that relates it to our energy shifts away from fossil fuels and I think suggests forward positive change to people.

The appearance of the White House vegetable garden this past summer had something to do with this open letter. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that the press followed up on it after the announcements that Michelle was putting it in. I kept trying to imagine who and how it was going to be tended---that would have been some good human interest coverage to further promote backyard vegetables.

I hope Pollan's mention of Wes Jackson's work at the Land Institute is the beginning of more press for the efforts underway there. If we can perennialize our major food crops it will save a major amount of energy and water (I thought Pollan could have focused on how much water it takes, and the concept of virtual water, a little more) in food production. Both perennial grain crops and virtual water are pretty new concepts, and publicity for these forward-thinking ideas is good.

Just 2 nails weren't hit quite squarely. Seems to me we need to forego meat on the menu more than just one day a week. One day a week doesn't provide much experience cooking altenatives. The other square hit I believe we need in an open letter is to clarify the thinking that the meat industry produces "waste". It is only waste because we think of it that way. In nature there is no such thing as waste. All manures can be recycled back to the land, where they are one of just 2 major natural sources of nitrogen fertilizer---the other being the legumes fixing nitrogen from the air. So to start thinking sustainably, i.e. in terms of the natural planetary cycles that sustainability is really all about, it's useful to begin identifying manure as a resource rather than as waste.

Polymers are Forever.

A couple years ago I realized for the first time that plastic is a resource. What that means is that, after the impact-intensive process of creating it from petroleum, we should reserve it for things with essential functions, like computing, drilling, sawing and cashier’s drawers, and not for trinkets, disposable water bottles and the merchandise packaging that every year now gets more difficult to pry off the goods, where it’s designed to make the object of our desire look bigger than it really is.

Nurdles are sobering stuff. I knew about the rubber duckies who now float around the world. I wasn’t aware that plastic bits have become food for zooplankton, working their way up through the food chain. Nor was I aware that we can now beautify our skin with plastic exfoliants. Or that there was any such thing as a nurdle, and certainly not that they’re magnets for PCBs and DDT.

Woe on us clever humans. In the book Ishi, Last of his Tribe the anthropologist Alfred Kroeber records in the frontispiece that Ishi, who was captured and went to live in the Anthropology Museum in Berkeley, where he gave demonstrations of how his tribe before annihilation made fire from flintstones---looked on us as children, smart but not wise.

I wrote Precautionary Principle all over this article. Some years ago the city of San Franciso adopted the precautionary principle. Haven’t heard how far they took it. The principle seems to have dropped from significant mention, but we need to bring it back. It posits that instead of organizing the introduction of new substances (eg plastic, DDT) and processes (e.g.AC electricity, wi-fi, neither of which humans were evolved for exposures to) so that the substance/process ends up proven unsafe by harm to those subjected to it, that the burden of proof instead be on those who want to introduce and profit from it---think GMOs, RGBH, and on and on.

In the short term, it appears there is really nothing we can do about all the plastic we’ve released into the environment. I am intrigued, however, with the epochal time frame mentioned at the end of the article. That it took microbes a long time to learn to eat plant lignin and cellulose, and that perhaps microbes will be able in an epoch or two beyond us to learn how to digest plastic. It reminds me of a wild idea I heard this summer from the body-work community: that if we do obliterate the feasibility of human survival on the planet, there is always the possibility that the viruses (swine flu perhaps?) will carry human genes through to start human-like life here again. Not able to immediately check facts here, but isn’t it the case that viruses live by incorporating themselves into our DNA to replicate themselves? A wild idea that may not be so wild from the human perspective if that’s correct.

2009-11-27T17:06:00.000-08:00

interesting NY Times piece running the gamut of questions and characters we covered in the food section..... and hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving.

amazing project

2009-11-25T11:04:00.000-08:00

The Desert Museum of Rajasthan

2009-11-22T09:12:00.001-08:00

ny times agri-imperialism
oh man.

interesting and thank you all for the food

2009-11-20T14:02:00.001-08:00

http://www.conversations.org/

2009-11-20T13:32:00.000-08:00

Jeanne-Claude, Cristo's collaborator, has passed away.

are we all but potential had

2009-11-19T17:58:00.000-08:00

i found the elegy reading a little dull and wistful. isn't that a good ground for motivation and action? it was like a poetic tantrum. lovely, don't get me wrong, but that is the stuff that art and ecology is made of. invade the wasteland and place signs of birds that once lived there and do no more. host meetings, post posts asking if there might be others that might miss that as well. do something. complaining nostalgically is still complaining.
and then there's gaviotas. oh my goodness, let's go! NOW! i had to look up the pisolithus tinctorius (spelled pizolithus in the text) and it's beautiful.

xL6dF8/SwX5b8UTmeI/AAAAAAAAAHQ/68OM9uABrlY/s320/images-1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406001186171230690" /> it literally looks like a turd. pardon my language, but it's quite an interesting metaphor. as a printmaker, this stuff is gold.
this accidental experiment that brought the forest and all its critters back to life. the community, the energy, the devotion, the equality, the respect should be our model. "papa, sing to the flowers to help them grow". i grew up saying, " daddy take me to disney".
we should all, all over the globe, get to a point where we can make the claim that we produce over 70% of our food and energy needs.
very inspiring. i'd like to go. and stay forever.

glass airplanes & jacaranda trees

2009-11-19T16:17:00.000-08:00

oliver's brief elegy to a cape cod dump and weisman's paean to gaviotas in colombia tell stories of landscapes lost and found, and humanity's role, embraced or denied, in the complex and often redemptive processes of healing.

the waste land elegy is an ominously quiet portent of the effects of human overpopulation, every day more clearly a matter for nature, not engineering, to resolve.

the story of gaviotas' pines, on the other hand, extols simple human effort and generosity bringing to mind jean giono's tale of elzéard bouffier in the man who planted trees (l'homme qui plantait des arbres) and the far reaching effects that unselfish stewardship of earth's resources can still have.

we will always need such stories, and i'm glad to have these.

Response to The Trees and Wasteland: An Elegy

2009-11-19T07:43:00.000-08:00

Wasteland is a lament. It is a mournful cry against the destruction of the nature that is perhaps inevitable as a town develops and grows. The repeated phrase, "But this is an elegy" throughout, makes this clear. In complete contrast, The Trees is a working model for how humans can take resources, develop them thoughtfully in relation to the environment, and improve not only the landscape, but the economic and social community of the residents.

Gaviotas sounds like Nirvana. For a place like this to prosper, it would require that all the residents work equally hard for the common good. When reading the section where Jose Ignacio went back to inspect wells that had been installed by Gaviotas on and around the mouth of the Rio Magdalena, I realized the implication. Technology along, installed in a specific location, cannot implement change or improve conditions in that location. A community effort, all with a common goal, and the willingness to adapt for the survival of the community is what makes the difference.

I have never heard of any community like this surviving long-term. It gives me hope that it is possible. It requires complete commitment to the community and a sense of selflessness. I wonder if this concept is even possible on anything less than small enclave scale in the United States?

illegal laundry hanging?

2009-11-19T05:51:00.000-08:00

Interesting that even when people are trying to be green, they can get in trouble!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091118/us_nm/us_usa_laundry

2009-11-18T06:49:00.000-08:00

NYTimes on the Spiral Jetty, entropy and conservation efforts/intentions.

Personally, I think protecting the jetty from the mining (but I have a double interest there; useful to site a historic artwork as a reason to stave off industrial pillaging of our natural resources... art will save our world!) and the fertilizer pond project nearby while allowing the actual processes of the rising and lowering water levels is quite reflective of Smithson's intentions. That human visitors to the site have interacted with it, perhaps to its detriment perhaps simply another aspect of reflecting after the act of viewing, is rather sweet. As opposed to the sterile environment of museums where a uniformed guard grumbles or gravitates towards a visitor if they dare get too physically close to a piece of art, Land Art projects provide an opportunity to be within the art itself as well. And we could all use being within art more in our lives.

2009-11-17T09:18:00.000-08:00

NYTimes piece on "amateur" mapping

2009-11-15T09:03:00.001-08:00

a series of articles on global warming from salon. com

2009-11-12T09:02:00.000-08:00

an interesting "calculator" quiz regarding your individual environmental 'footprint' impact.

an appeal...

2009-11-11T14:05:00.000-08:00

Dear all,

I will need help on Saturday Nov 21, taking down my piece at the CCA Mapping show. If any of you have time, I would appreciate a few hands very much. Its an opportunity to see the show, albeit in its disintegration, and get some experience in the ways of non-profit galleries.

Just let me know in class if you can come. We'll work out the transportation.

best,
Catherine

reponse to readings

2009-11-11T09:45:00.000-08:00

i am taking a page from de vries and removing capital letters from my work for the next week. it will be an interesting personal experience - already finding myself struggling to put aside this ingrained habit just 2 sentences in. the combination of botany, poetry and creation of art does not seem far-fetched at all when reading this article. i am interested in his theory that nothing happens by chance - all is simply a reaction to various stimuli input. very interesting theory!

"beauty counts" and "paradise garden" - what a lovely phrases to keep in mind. and the concept that a garden could be "peopled" by making it so beautiful that a person is compelled to stop. while i love gardening, i have never framed it in quite that way. lovely. and the mental image of artis alan gussow's slit canvas garden walls will stay with me. and i, too, will try to remember to step back and breathe.

2009-11-11T00:40:00.001-08:00

Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate
Breathe; and enjoy what nature might plant for you.

2009-11-11T00:39:00.000-08:00

i am but one small leaf on the tree that is mankind.
those that have gone before me lay the tracks that i might find my way home.
herman de vries i thank you.

snow in a silver bowl

2009-11-10T21:17:00.000-08:00

It sounds like it was fun to be de Vries.
I appreciate his wide range of subject matter and explorations from the Upanishads and Zen rather than objects. To get to the experience itself. I frequently wonder how to let my ego step out of the way ...enough to help something emerge?
I was just reading about some of Kenga Kuma’s work on organic architecture. Similar sentiment in some ways.
“I want to escape from the abstract and aspire to the organic.
A thing that is organic is different from a thing that is simply natural or made of natural materials. A thing that is organic must possess the generative dynamism characteristic of living things”
“We do not care what the whole is like, but things that are organic, taking as they do different forms, surprise us each time. In fact, they do more than surprise us. Organic things are so unique and endearing that they inspire in us feelings of affection and a desire to caress them.
www.toto.co.jp/gallerma/ex091015/index_e.htm

It is interesting to pair de Vries and Wendy Johnson. I am not sure why they are?
I have lived at Green Gulch Farm. Briefly and beautifully. The drawing of the center garden brought me to tears. It is a dear space and I think it is made dear by the memory to slow down, to pay attention. There is a tradition there that everyone goes out into the fields in the beginning of the spring to plant the garden. So we rise and sit the dawn service then make our way to the fog arising fields. All are there. The Roshi, the cook, the priests, the farmies, and the elders. The experience is quiet and simple. And yet it is a very strict discipline.
Snow in a silver bowl
Beauty is enough. But this requires a wild patience. Is this what De Vries is getting at when he says “art is a discipline that contributes to becoming consciousness. Art is a free domain.

weaving paradise

2009-11-10T17:59:00.000-08:00

reading johnson on divinely superfluous beauty and then de vries on chance and change suggests the many opportunities to weave quotidien abrash into divine beauty.

through the unraveling of beauty comes beauty by way of chance and a chance to begin anew to weave beauty again in a rhythm of creation and dissolution, each step again producing the chance of beauty in process.

thus the world is garden.

article

2009-11-10T13:57:00.000-08:00

the question of humans and seeds and climate change

NYTimes

2009-11-10T13:54:00.000-08:00

Errol Morris thought piece on documentary photography and perception.

informative and kinda fun quiz

2009-11-10T12:11:00.000-08:00

Clinton Foundation Global Quiz

Images from Bosque School Field Trip

2009-11-10T10:32:00.001-08:00

Images from the Audio Tour

2009-11-10T10:18:00.001-08:00

for laurie lang re: bees

2009-11-10T08:53:00.001-08:00

Native Bee Presentation: Sat Nov 14, after lunch at the NM Beekeepers Assoc Meeting, Immanuel Presbyterian Church 114 Carlisle

Talk will introduce the Native Bee Habitat Outdoor Classroom Project of the NM Bee Collaborative, a volunteer organization whose goal is to foster a string of safe havens across the countryside for our native bees and honeybees under duress. Arid lands are centers of diversity for bees, and NM is estimated to have as many as 1,200 species.

Most native species are solitary nesters who do not sting, and are skilled builders with mud, pebbles, pithy sticks, pine pitch and leaves. After briefly meeting the major bee families and looking at their life histories, we'll focus on bumble bees, whose health has been threatened by agribusiness green house production of cherry tomatoes, strawberries and other commodities now available out of season.

Call Laurie at 505. 220 . 2726 for specific info about time presentation is scheduled for

some news and a poem

2009-11-09T21:03:00.000-08:00

Plastic gyres in the oceans

The Second Coming (Slouching towards Bethlehem)

W.B Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Rubber Stamps - additional

2009-11-06T19:18:00.001-08:00

When I called to get an estimate, I learned that the prices for rubber stamps have doubled. It is a bit cheaper online but time could be an issue. rubberstamps.com seems to have more reasonable prices but you would need to submit a .tif or a .pdf file to get it done. They turn around in two business days - it would be cutting it very close though.

sequence for printing

2009-11-06T19:16:00.000-08:00

Of course, the 2 pages uploaded in reverse order... The bottom three images are steps 1, 2 and 3 with the top three images being 4, 5 and 6. If that makes sense.

quick and dirty block printing directions

2009-11-06T19:10:00.000-08:00

I took some pics tonight as I was block printing - thought it might be useful for anyone considering but maybe it has been a while?? I have cutting tools and a brayer that I am willing to let anyone borrow if they need to. It could keep costs down for everyone and they can be returned to me next Friday. Email me if you want to use the tools. Thanks.

rubber stamps

2009-11-06T13:50:00.000-08:00

Southwest Rubber Stamp Co
www.swrubberstamp.com

6717 Lomas Blvd NE
Albuquerque, NM 87110-6817
(505) 889-3166

Savannah, this is the place I was thinking of - on Lomas rather than Central.

SFe Reporter take on Mapping a Green Future Show

2009-11-05T13:37:00.000-08:00

ecotistical

2009-11-05T08:14:00.000-08:00

Mushroom article repost (I hope)

2009-11-05T08:12:00.000-08:00

Earthstone's website

2009-11-05T08:10:00.000-08:00

recycled glass product I mentioned in class

Focus Ink

2009-11-04T16:06:00.000-08:00

Green Products

(including coasters)

2009-11-04T15:36:00.000-08:00

The Adventures Ahead
Unfortunately it seems that industry will not stop burning coal. The work of Susan Hovorka includes injecting CO 2 1,500 feet underground. This to me sounds equally dangerous. Do we really know the side effects of this? The article states that it will take time to make this process economically safe but what about environmentally safe? It does not seem probable for people to inhabit the moon, why not work harder to save the planet Earth. Better yet why not let the Earth haters move to the moon with their manufacturing plants, nuclear waste and gas guzzling vehicles. The information about biospheres is fascinating. The technology and design of the synthetic ecosystem has great potential. The end of the article "The Carbon Age" made me sad when the author stated that Smalley said"Action on global warming can be driven by heroic leadership or by events it will probably be events". Events will be late.

Serpentine California

2009-11-04T10:01:00.000-08:00

The ability to convey a message to a viewer and instigate change is a true gift and requires an amazing amount of tact, verbal acuity and instinct to be effective. It is easy to be heavy-handed, resulting in alienation rather than the intended involvement and action. Serpentine California appeals on many levels, not the least being that this is in the form of a graphic novel. In the publishing industry, one section that is actually growing is the graphic novel genre. This reaches primarily high school and college aged people - what a great venue this could be for Kinne! I like the concepts that come through this work. The idea of associations such as the rain on redwood shingles smelling of the forest floor, the lichen on the redwood fences rather than on tree trunks...these are very evocative images that convey a kind of melancholic reminiscence. I agree with Catherine in that this needs some further development, but the potential is magnificent.

2009-11-04T09:50:00.001-08:00

more technical who ha on mushroom remediation

mushrooms to the rescue!

2009-11-04T09:46:00.000-08:00

fungi... and possible fixes.

funny haha

2009-11-04T09:43:00.000-08:00

some humor

Plastic Periodic and Wrong

2009-11-03T20:26:00.000-08:00

PLa>823,456

As a result of the Weisman reading I started furiously composing my own Periodic Table of the Elements placing Plastic next to Uranium or Plutonium with a 400 billion year half life. Then I found that no one really knows when plastic decomposes. And the Periodic Table was too complex and not pretty enough. So. I gave up.

Two good things

Some fungal rhizii(sp?) are being propogated as consumers of plastic. I supppose this is hopeful but then what do the fungus become?

China has banned plastic bags. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/china-plastic-bag-ban-saves-1-million-tons-of-oil.php

walking

2009-11-03T11:39:00.000-08:00

This seems like a worthwhile legislative petition.

2009 Transportation Bill

for laurie lange

2009-11-03T11:24:00.001-08:00

Wasteland: An Elegy

Written with the eye of a nature connoisseur, this is a lovely little piece. It hints at what I think is perhaps the most important thing for us to comprehend in facing environmental renewal of the planet: that the planet doesn’t really need us for the greater part of this process---we just think we’re that important in the scheme of things. The author says as much: “I could walk there and see birds I found nowhere else”. Birds choose habitat according to their nature, not according to what we think their tendencies are.

We’ve arrived in an era in which we’re coming to comprehend fully that, rather than our human built improvements being that in nature, oftentimes what we design causes degradation. This is a step in the right direction, but the final step comes when we understand that we’re part of nature, rather than an agent outside of her. This doesn’t mean it’s OK we’ve created burn dumps. What it means is that ecosynthesis happens, and that we’re part of that equation, degradation and all. There is no such thing as perfect, and preservation tends to be an exercise that will sometimes be futile. We do cause extinctions, we do lay land to waste, but other, natural forces do as well.

We’re not the designers here on planet earth---though it seems mostly we have an egocentric notion that we are. Living at the remove we do in “civilized” culture, we’ve cut ourselves off from the kind of exposures that build understanding of the intricate vastness of nature’s plan such as, say, aboriginal cultures had. Nature walks at a burn dump are one way to remedy that and, as the author notes, no other humans were ever encountered there acquainting themselves with the nature of the place.

Soundscapes/Soundwalk

Our soundwalk project and the McCartney reading have enriched my circle of attention Though I’ve worked over the course of decades in media that are tactile, like fiberarts and landscape design, my orientation as an artist has always been with 2D visuals. I’d like ever so much to explore sound further as a medium.

I’m exploring architectural illustration this semester. The treatise on the subject that’s most caught my attention focuses on exercises to convey a tactile sense of space and buildings rather than just a visual rendering of them. The author points out how much vision is attached to our intellectual understanding, rather than a felt sense of a space. In a similar way, soundscapes coax us away from a purely mental world into places where the kinesthetics of sound amplify other gleanings: intuition, perception, eros, dreaming.

Oddly though, the comments McCartney makes about how the success of a recording is a measure of how well the artist knows a space applies also to photography: learning a place over time is the only way to know when the light is just right for that incredible shot. It’s not just drama, like a picture of a fantastic sunset: knowing the place cam convey in a photo what a place is in subtle ways as well.

Mc Cartney speaks of the holding power of a place. I think of the power of silence, and wonder how a recordist would capture it. There is presence in a place where silence has been practiced over the course of centuries; I once visited a gathering place in Phildelphia whose only purpose for 300 years or so has been for gatherings of prayerful silence. It was so deep there, I could fathom no bottom to it. I just wanted to soak it up.

Serpentine California

I hope this comic creator will, or has continued to develop his craft. As comics go, Serpentine California is a beginning effort, but it hints at things it would be interesting to see more fully embodied in the form. What caught my imagination was his evocation of “the elemental passion of small things”, and his hints at the epochal emergence of rocks.

Once in a sharing with others about what peoples’ spiritual experiences were, and where they’ve occurred, it emerged that what everyone shared had happened in nature. Kinne describes a simple kind of spirituality in a quiet way---not a big deal, spiritual.

In psychology, rocks represent the soul, and as I’ve sat with them, I’ve learned this. They’re beings whose marriage with water and with air begets their offspring soil, and dreaming them what comes to me is that their lifetimes are on a scale unimaginable within the skin of a human’s life. Let’s have more comics about rocks!

here's what we should do about the rio grande and the diversion channels:

2009-11-03T08:15:00.000-08:00

wake up

LA Times article

2009-11-02T07:28:00.000-08:00

Toxic waste and the Rio Grande

Reading Response: Weisman and Roston

2009-11-01T15:21:00.000-08:00

The Weisman chapter is so troubling. I am so horrified, I wish every plastic consumer was forced to read this. The fact that the plastic is so small as to be called powder-like is so scary...what implications will this have? What it all comes down to his this disgusting consumerism, that is a problem in any country with wealth. We have to stop buying and bring down the demand, it seems as though that is our only option.

The Roston article was very good. It was a little to scientific for my mind at times, but it was enjoyable regardless. I liked reading about Smilley, it was a great way to talk about global warming, by showing just how credible this guy is.

neighborhood walkability

2009-10-31T06:56:00.000-07:00

For those of you working on walkng/bodega etc. projects, check out this tool...

walking

2009-10-28T19:03:00.000-07:00

proof

nurdling from swerve of shore to bend of bay

2009-10-28T18:13:00.000-07:00

Do you think we'll be missed when we're gone?

Weisman and Roston readings

2009-10-28T16:31:00.000-07:00

The first reading by Weisman made me very depressed. I had no idea there was floating masses of plastics in the ocean. That is truly disgusting. I am planning to be more vigilant about what I buy and where I dispose of it. While I am not a news fanatic, it is astounding that I have never heard of this before. There is so much wrong with our world out there that it is overwhelming - how does a person know where to start? With this kind of information readily available, is it possible that the administration is unaware or is it simply a matter of critical priorities? It seems unlikely that government would be unaware. This certainly seems to be an extremely critical issue, although if the global warming issue is not addressed immediately, it will simply be too late for most people. The mental vision of all those organisms out there that have ingested bits, or in some cases large chunks, of plastic is repulsive. It certainly makes the science fiction notion of mutants more plausible.

The Roston writing, while sobering, at least offers a bit of hope. As with any research, it is through the doing that researchers expand their knowledge and understanding. While I am a believer in technology, technology alone will not save us. And it really is not fair to be environmentally lazy with our lives and expect the science community to "fix" things for us. I'm going to go to bed an pull the covers over my head for a while while my brain is reeling...

Artisode

2009-10-28T08:29:00.000-07:00

well said, Janess!

Post for Oct. 30 - Scott Collins presentation

2009-10-27T18:27:00.000-07:00

Scott Collins gave a terrific presentation. For once, I felt like I was listening to a scientist who was presenting the facts...not a convenient version of selected data, but facts. The most compelling persuasion (for me) tends to be when facts are presented without bias and without any overt conversion-to-my-side sermon.

While driving home this evening, I tuned into a local talk-radio show and heard person after person slamming both those who would talk about global warming and vegetarians. What a ridiculous bit of propaganda. At the same time, the vegetarians who called in to protest were just as out of line as the naysayers. There has to be a middle ground somewhere.

While digesting this information, I am beginning to wonder if I should not be planning to retire a bit further north than I intended. If we, as a world, do not actively begin to address these issues, New Mexico may not be the healthiest place to be.

more interesting points.... from across the pond

2009-10-27T09:59:00.001-07:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/oct/27/climate-change-contraception-women-feminism

2009-10-26T22:30:00.001-07:00

NYTimes link of interest

2009-10-23T22:44:00.001-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/arts/design/22currents.html?ref=design

City of Albuquerque Climate Action Plan

2009-10-21T06:31:00.000-07:00

I am very interested in the City Action Plan, particularly since we now have a new mayor entering the city political arena. With the global international economic turmoil, it is my worry that environmental issues will be put on the back burner. I don't think we can afford to delay action any further. The question will then be, how much damage continues to happen as other issues cloud the ADD-esque attention span pervasive to New Mexico.

I agree with Jennifer Valdez in that most of us would love to have alternatives that are user-friendly. Albuquerque is much improved - a person truly took their life in their own hands while trying to bike to anywhere in the city 20 years ago. My husband used to bike to work from the East Mountains, dodging cars that deliberately tried to hit him, jumping over glass and debris, and working his way back through neighborhoods to avoid Central Avenue. He finally gave up after breaking his collarbone in a wreck while rounding a corner and hitting a pile of cement left to harden on a city street. Everyone in this city will have to be both aware and educated on what they can do to make a difference.

To that end, I think it would be very prudent for the mayor and governor to push for the early education of our children in the area of good stewardship. New Mexico has a very widely dispersed population. That does not mean that New Mexico cannot do anything about our effect on the environment. There may not be the infrastructure or funds to develop an efficient subway such as in Washington DC, but the small steps the city is taking can be expanded on.

There are a couple of issues I see with the Transportation Plan, however. I Do not like the idea of constraining parking supply. When people are driving anyway, you are contributing to the greenhouse effect by encouraging continual circling, waiting for a spot to open. Perhaps expanding park-and-ride options might be a more effective solution. I also think that Strategy Three can be misleading. Biodiesel and ethanol both impact global food supply and can be fossil-fuel costly. It takes nearly as much fossil fuel to produce biodiesel as the biodiesel produces in volume. While our electricity production is more "clean" than it used to be, the roughly 48% our plants that produce electricity are still coal-fired and coal-firing does not tend to be "clean". So before we jump on the electric-biodiesel-ethanol bandwagon, we need to understand the true cost of each.

possibility for either 10/24 expression or mapping project

2009-10-20T11:18:00.001-07:00

http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/10/20/mud-stencils-create-environmentally-conscious-graffiti/

interview with Fallen Fruit folks

2009-10-20T11:16:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5pcdeZCmK4&feature=player_embedded

check out the land arts site

2009-10-20T10:46:00.001-07:00

http://landarts.unm.edu/

for jennifer valdez

2009-10-19T15:12:00.000-07:00

Transportation by the City of Albuquerque Climate action Plan (Aug.09) gives a working framework to reduce greenhouse emissions. I liked some of the alternatives to automobiles such as cycling networks, car-pooling, pedestrian trails, and transit systems. None of these alternatives would work for my family I have to drive my son to the East mountains for middle school, my daughter drives to Manzano each day while my boyfriend drives to the airport and I to UNM.. While I think that these ideas are great I don’t feel that they are realistic for the common family. I also liked the targets which include cycling networks but I feel that the city would have to work hard to make these safe to use. I have moved her e from Santa Fe where they also tried to incorporate these sort of trails. None of the trails were safe and often women were targeted on these trails. I feel that the transit system is helpful and I would use it if I lived closer to a bus stop. To be honest my family is from Albuquerque and I am positive that not one of them would give up their cars to reduce emissions gases. Nor, would they use any sort of alternative transit system. I just don’t feel that enough people are aware of the pollution problems and even if they knew they do not care. It is very sad.

2009-10-16T07:27:00.001-07:00

350.org

2009-10-14T15:38:00.000-07:00

Should we do a 350.org project for October 24th? Its the International Day of Climage Change Awareness. Any ideas? Check out their website.

best,

Catherine

Mapping Global Warming - a distributable project

2009-10-13T10:56:00.001-07:00

Catherine Harris

Intro to Art and Ecology

Fall 2009, Project Three

Mapping global warming – a distributable project:

Final Due November 13, 2009

Guidelines:

1. Identify an issue/idea about global warming that you’d like to map based in the city of Albuquerque. (Due October 23, in class)

2. Create a mapping of that issue. This can be two or three-dimensional. You can base it on a literal physical map of the city. You could work with a different map, such as a mental map, or a map of the wind directions, or a map of food consumption…. While you are mapping, you will be researching the parameters of your issue. As you understand it, your map may change. Does a light rail on Central help with car commuters and thus emissions? Would the light rail need another line? Another location? How far do we go to make it helpful? Quantify your data. Make your map flexible.

3. Make your map helpful, as well as visually compelling. You are pointing out a possibility for change. How will change be effected? How are you suggesting change happen? Include this on your map presentation.

4. Decide how you will distribute your map. Would you like to have it as a hand out? Will it be a youtube video? Will it be a button, a business card, a foldout, a rubber bouncy ball with a map embedded in it? Whatever you choose, make sure you can actually make at least 26 copies. We will have time in class to distribute them and I want one and I’d like you to be able to give away at least 25. (without breaking the bank….)

5. Options for reproduction: Moo and Rocket both make postcards and business cards cheaply. You need to plan ahead, as both are internet services. Look around in town for who might print cheaply for you. You could make your own ink stamps, potato or otherwise. You could do lino cuts or some other easy to reproduce printing method. You could Xerox or print from a laser printer. You could make a jig and make small reproducible three-dimensional objects out of wood, fabric, cardboard, wire or wax, for example. You could make buttons, zines….

LA 503 DESIGN STUDIO 3 DISCOVERING THE SENSE OF A REGION

2009-10-13T08:27:00.000-07:00

WEDNESDAY PM OCTOBER 14 IN THE COURTYARD
A N I N S T A L L A T I O N P R O J E C T
Martineztown / Santa Barbara
Wells Park / Sawmill
Los Duranes
NEIIGHBORHOOD NARRATIIVES

for laurie lange

2009-10-12T12:33:00.001-07:00

Transportation: this task force report seems fine as far as it goes. I don't think it is as thorough as the one on local foodsheds though by a long shot. Pretty much they are suggesting that mitigation of air pollution etc in our transportation sector is solved by bicycles. Yes, biking works. But the problem here is the same larger problem we so often have of not putting ALL the pieces together for a comprehensive whole; this task force has just looked at some small parts of the whole. To reduce automotive emissions, how about addressing the problem of decent grocery stores not being available in a place like the south valley? That would reduce the amount of miles driven in cars that likely are some of the heaviest polluters. There are many related things like this I believe need to be added to the strategies for a reduction of transportation greenhouse gases.

Computer Infrastructure: This paper opened my eyes to some things I wasn't aware of, like the server buildings. I don't know how we can mitigate the amount of electrical energy the whole process of cyber connection requires, but perhaps we'll be forced to come up with ways to reduce the amount of lead that gets disposed of in the environment. The rate at which new models of electronics comes out is a large cause of this. It is driven by corporate desires to keep us buying and buying, rather than supporting models for even 3 or 5 years. If laws were enacted to shift the market dynamics here, some of the waste and environmental poisoning could be alleviated.

2009-10-12T07:43:00.000-07:00

Awsome

2009-10-11T17:57:00.000-07:00

matters of scale, art, & bulleted lists

2009-10-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

With these readings of Silicon Valley culture and Albuquerque transportation policy, we again face matters of increasing scale that result in the destruction of landscapes and ecosystems. This large-scale destruction is obviously in conflict with sustainable employment of landscapes and their resources to benefit society at large. And the idea of society has become a matter of scale, too, with what we refer to as civilization or culture now superceding national identities and boundaries.

So what is art's role in the globalized destruction of orchards for laptops or the writing of transportation policy papers? Record, react, intervene, design....?

hummmmm... "dewatering" plants?

2009-10-11T12:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/business/2009/10/11/D9B92CRO1_us_hudson_pcbs/index.html

map thoughts....

2009-10-11T12:16:00.000-07:00

http://www.papress.com/html/book.details.page.tpl?isbn=9781568987620

sticks and stones or just sticks

2009-10-08T19:44:00.000-07:00

I only have a few things, ok maybe just one thing, I find his work interesting. It's amazing how large his works are and how he put them together. Its cool the movement he gets out of the sculptures. The placement and how everything comes together is great. Its very overwhelming and aah inspiring.

Speaking of Climate Change

2009-10-08T12:52:00.000-07:00

Has anyone seen the new TV commercial campaign from a nonprofit called "C02 is Green"?

Check out http://co2isgreen.org/default.aspx/MenuItemID/137/MenuGroup/Home.htm for an entirely different perspective on climate change. After some research, I found that some coal and oil industry execs put it together and are targeting certain states (like NM) because of some recent US EPA legislation, but you'd never know that from looking at the website. Scary stuff!

useful

2009-10-08T10:43:00.001-07:00

http://foundationcenter.org/gainknowledge/pubhub/pubhub_item.jhtml?id=fdc90700008

Response: The City of Albuquerque Climate Task Force: Transportation & Me. Myself and Infrastructure

2009-10-07T18:59:00.000-07:00

Transportation

First off this is really depressing to read this knowing that we no longer have Mayor Chavez but a REPUBLICAN mayor, scary!

It sounded so great till all this "by 2030 stuff." It seems so very far away, I want to see change now! I am very surprised at the initiative albuquerque is taking. I would love to see these changes take place. If more people rode their bikes I would feel much safer out on the rode. I think the down-sizing of parking spaces is crucial for this to work. Although I totally disagree with the free parking for those with electric vehicles, if you can afford that car you can afford parking. The lower class family that can't afford an electric vehicle probably cannot afford parking. Its disgusting that those with money can in turn receive privileges.

"Me, Myself and Infrastructure"

I must say I love my computer and most certainly need it, it disgust me that children in third world countries don't have nowhere near as clean water as my computer had at one point. This was such a great article, I knew that computers obviously created lots of waste, but when the numbers are thrown in your face it is just mind blowing. As a consumer I feel sad at the lack of control we have over companies and the government to effect change.

All I can say is i hope this Berry guy/mayor is not a typical republican. Sad, very sad Albuquerque....

-Victoria

so much depends upon density

2009-10-07T09:56:00.000-07:00

PLANNING BLURT

2009-10-07T09:08:00.000-07:00

I am very glad to read The City of Albuquerque’s Climate Task Force recommendations to Mayor Chavez. I get almost comatose with despair that critical changes will not happen in time for our children to inhabit anything remotely livable. These all sound like very progressive strategies. Bravo!

I would like to see a moratorium on new road construction that would make sprawling new development the dinosaur it deserves to be- (i.e. dead).

If we as taxpayers and citizens of Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Bernalillo County, and Santa Fe County developed joint initiatives to limit new road construction this would basically increase density and therefore over time precipitate the following:
• increase existing land value by limiting the supply of cheap developable land
• emphasize profitable construction technologies that deal with infill,toxic remediation and adaptive reuse projects
• rezone existing neighborhoods to accept increased density
• increase walkable radii (see Doug Kelbaugh Noli diagrams regarding permeability of old cities versus new cities) His statement in Repairing the American Metropolis: Common Place Revisited is that if you build more roads (like Seoul South Korea) you will always need more roads. If you build infrastructure (like Tokyo) you will have build public permeability.
• make alternative transportation more attractive by increasing perceivable ‘nearness’ factor
• allow for public stewardship of habitat corridors that rely on large land mentoring like Dave Foreman's ReWilding initiatives. How do the bears get to the mountains if a road cuts their path? The answer is they don’t. They die on the highway.

This is supposed to be an ART class. Sorry it turned into a planning statement.

-Will submit NOLI diagrams to graphically support this thinking.

ahh infrastrucutre.....

2009-10-07T08:29:00.000-07:00

I was just watching the History Channel the other night on a program about the US’s aging infrastructure and the current challenges to it. In the program they made note of the electrical junction boxes on transformer poles that have been known to melt in the hot sun, the storm sewers that are being overwhelmed with the current rising levels of rainfall in certain regions and the 100 year old levee systems in California that were created by farmers and are now eroding from beneath. A whole new layer to the concept of ‘burning up the wires’, which originated with telegraphs is now in the colloquial lexicon of computer geeks everywhere.

Perhaps it is meant to be? Perhaps if we are as interwoven into the natural fabric as ants then our structural creations, however hubridistically we envisioned them lasting forever and congratulating our advancing civilization, are destined to be folded back into the earth like ingredients in a batter. Maybe the dawn of the electronic age is in fact a new phase for our outmoded construction methodologies and our imagination needs to be freed from the speed at which we progressed and take a breather, look around and say: What the hell can we do with all these bits and pieces we cut off and defined as trash simply because they were attached to, but not primary to our understanding, of something valuable? I mean plastic leeches toxic stuff but we did not create it out of thin air now did we? We reassembled ingredients.

Maybe I am being a Pollyanna; all optimism and hope in the face of a crushing end. Perhaps it is my lazy human spirit that says, “we’ll figure something out! We must!” If not then I best get training like that woman in Terminator who has those lovely biceps and wields a gun ‘cause the end is neigh. At least I’ll be able to forage a few more decades if I train for a marathon now and stop playing Solitaire until the wee hours while fretting over how to visually express the components of a neighborhood within the confines of an 8’ X 8’ X 8’ volume.

I think we as humans are endlessly interesting and that is our blessing and curse if one is to value judge that I try not to do often, but I fear it is an ingrained knee-jerk reaction. Imagination and curiosity and a desire to have a happy bottom have lead to cars, computers and fancy toilets that respond to our approach. It is what, I believe, sits at the base chakra of all creative endeavors and I value creativity highly. I love reading poetry and looking at art and watching people dance around one another. And music! It brings me joy and that is why I continue to live.

Maybe our next phase as a people and a civilization, after the infrastructure meltdown that we will have to actually look at instead of pretending our shiny happy electric friends are magic, will include a more aged and weathered outlook on our inevitable deaths and will let us then enjoy our lives more in the here and now, knowing for certain that whatever we build to try to outlast our mortal coil is really simply another ay to spend out tie and maybe, just maybe, it might be better to be dancing instead.

An interesting aside: not sure about these, will have to actually look at the built version, but I liked the idea: http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/10/06/brad-pitt-unveils-floating-house-for-make-it-right-foundation/

Also, I loved the layout and graphic quality of the ‘me, myself and Infrastructure’ piece, not to mention the content. And the tiny tips on fingers on the Xerox machine utterly charmed me, given the content.

Patrick Dougherty work day

2009-10-07T07:56:00.000-07:00

Please meet at Yale and Central, if you are taking the bus on Friday, in time to catch the 8:28 aka sometime around 8:25. This bus will get us to the Bosque School by 8:55, just in time to walk down the hill and be on time.

Noteworthy blogs

2009-10-07T07:03:00.000-07:00

Hi Class,

I've been meaning to share some blogs I read with you. They are mostly eco-art/design/environmental.

http://blog.greenmuseum.org/blog/

http://www.sustainablepractice.org/

http://ecoartspace.blogspot.com/

http://abigaildoan.blogspot.com/

http://smudgestudio.blogspot.com/

There are LOTS more and you can find them linked from these in a sort of vir(tu)al eco-art community. Enjoy!

2009-10-06T21:12:00.000-07:00

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
Education comes at a cost. Technology is slated a “clean” industry however as it has grown we have seen the downside of this clean industry. Saving the planet will always take 2nd or 3rd or more place to the advancement of mankind. Making as many people aware that the planet is being affected due to man; scare tactics and yes scientific data; something is happening to the planet we are just not sure what it is. The change has had an affect, however, due to the damage placed upon the earth and the rape of its resources it is only a “band aid”. Our way of life has changed greatly in the past 50 years. At one time computers were going to be the savior of the trees. Yet at every turn I am filling in paper forms or printing a part of a book that I would have at one time borrowed from the library! Yes, I set at one of the items that has increases the pace of life now; my computer. A gateway to the world I inhabit at this time. The “small” things I can do; I am very aware that unless I can get others to participate . . . well it is like taking a small shovel to a big pile of>>>>. One thing I feel is that man will adapt, what is beauty to us now maybe nothing but trash to the people that come after us.
TRANSPORTATION
On to the transportation issues; does anybody in government read these things? I love the Rapid Ride unless I need to go to Montgomery and Juan Tabo. I drive my car to the closest parking lot I can find – passing several bus stops on the way to go to UNM! Bike to bus is limited as well. However, I should be a little more patient in this area, as Albuquerque has made great strides in public transit in the last two years andl we have voted to provide more money in this area as a city!

readings

2009-10-06T19:43:00.000-07:00

"Me, Myself and Infastructure" was powerfully informative. I actually went on an emotional roller coaster while reading it, feeling extremely grateful to raise my awareness with real numbers and hard facts, to absolute depression thinking about how we have to respond to it on a computer, and finally,inspiration by the quote: "In the end, garbage is just a lack of imagination." I am amazed at the process of making ultrapure water. I have always felt our greatest concern on this planet is water. It's something I wish we could learn how to make. I think that anyone buying a computer, should read this. I was a bit disappointed in the fact that buybacks, in some cases, are limited only to companies. There is a very skewed logic in our system, that allows for enough cynicism that motivates me beyond my ability to articulate how I might execute that motivation. At times I feel overwhelmed by these facts and figures, and would like to choose, as most do, to allow this alarm to only make my reach for the blanket and press the snooze all the more sincere. However, it is like a nagging awareness that wakes you in the deepest slumber and follow you around every corner.Once you get on the path of truth, there is no turning back. I am just trying to bridge the gap between understanding and action.
As far as the Action Plan is concerned, are we the only ones reading them? I'm just sayin'.....

Al Gore's video

2009-10-05T07:08:00.000-07:00

I have to admit it...I had not watched Al Gore's video, An Inconvenient Truth, until this week. At the time it was released, I was still disgusted with the political turmoil that had occurred six years prior (the Florida vote debacle and the way the candidates had handled themselves). There is no question that global warming is a fact. There is also no arguing that humans have contributed (and will continue) to that process. The earth has cyclical heating/cooling and it is accelerating. Whether we like it or not, we have to try to mitigate the problem because doing nothing cannot be an option.

I wish that Gore had been able to let go of the past political disappointments and leave them out of the film. References to the Florida incident detracted from his message. The constant references to himself were also distracting. If he had been able to leave that part behind and focus solely on climate change and its ramifications, he would have persuaded a larger audience. Despite those idiosyncrasies, he raised awareness of global warming and deserved the Nobel Prize he received.

Education will play a critical role in all of the strategies proposed by the City of Albuquerque Climate Action Plan. In order for any of these goals to be realized, it will be critical to educate the children of New Mexico. If you look at the state profile at http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/states/profile.asp, you will see that nearly 61% of children in the schools of New Mexico qualify for free/reduced lunches. And while the testing scores are improving, they are still below the national average in nearly every category. I wish the policy makers in New Mexico were as interested in trying to address climate and education issues as they are in attracting the movie industry to this state. This would be an investment for the future social and economic health of New Mexico But until then, I will continue to recycle, to combine my necessary car trips, to use my bicycle whenever I am able and to shop locally whenever I can. And I will talk about it to the children in my sphere of influence.

2009-10-01T09:56:00.000-07:00

Nature by many views is the very essence of chaos. However once you in tune yourself with nature you will find a rhyme and reason to it all. Raw nature to me is the ultimate form that all artists should look to for guidance. That Patrick Dougherty has such a sharp vision of this is outstanding. Taking what others would say is “yard” trash and using these elements to create is a strong inspiration to me. Mass structures that are placed in the open are created for many reasons, one of the reasons that I have noted is to remember the artist, made of stone or metal they will stand forever. I have no need to be remembered like this. The most touching of items that have affected me are the ones that are fleeing; a flowers bloom, a warm sunny day, the smile on a person’s face. Patrick Dougherty creates sculpture in the same manner; they will leave us to return to the earth. During the time that they are here they are constantly changing from the nature course of the item. I agree with him on the attitude of “art civilizing our view of the wilderness”. How or why would we want to civilize something that all ready has great beauty in it creation? Creating a connection to wilderness is; working in the designs of the earth; nothing is lasting; it is a constant cycle.

sacred sticks

2009-09-30T20:14:00.000-07:00

I find Dougherty's yard works intriguing in many ways, as play itself, as garden craft, as art that embodies the ephemerality of play capturing the wildness of nature for a short time in the stories and techniques of cultural give and take. The recumbent osage orange of la Gabelle has its sacred counterpart in a Mississippi pecan tree, pulled from the earth by a storm but surviving ship-like, parallel with its earthen dock, half its roots exposed , limbs still bearing fruit even as children walked casually among its vertical branches, up into the prow of its canopy. "Be It Ever So Humble" in Savannah reminds me of garconnieres (would it if not in the marshy, humid south?), or perhaps the more modest but secret and equally sacrosanct suburban treehouse. "Spin Offs" look like tiny tornadoes tearing away at the fortress-like architectural turrets of DeCordova. All these works remind me of the alternate realities created in child's play, those imaginary worlds formed in and of nature beyond the reach of adults.

(with apologies for the late posting)

Irland Response LATE!

2009-09-30T19:14:00.000-07:00

Sorry forgot to post this.

Do you accept late work, Catherine?

Sandra Postal's introduction sounds like a middle school paper, constant "we..."

Anyways I like Basia Irland's ideas but she must be a scientist or is she just crazy about research, how can she study water so intently?

I really like the picture of all the bottles of water, it is so captivating knowing they are full of water from so far away from each other. Their close proximity on the shelf is great, and yet they are water which is so fluid and if combined would become one and thus unable to separate.

I really liked that the waters we then returned to a water source but not their own, it defiantly underlines that cyclical cycle. It creates this beautiful feeling of oneness.

Response to Yardworking

2009-09-30T19:09:00.000-07:00

Patrick Dougherty

Yardworking

I liked his analogy of a seamstress turned sculptor to him a woodsman turned sculptor. I think its interesting to be able to see what else besides art interests an artist, through their art.

I find it interesting that he thinks of his work as wild in concept in the wild, although it on another level cannot be wild, since he transforms it. I love when he calls his work at La Gabelle a "primitive sapling temple," I didn't at first think of his work as primitive but I can see the comparison.

What an ingenious idea to work with found sticks on a large scale.

I would love to experience one of Dougherty's sculptures. I liked when they talked about drawing with sticks because of their shape. I can defiantly see drawing aspect although he is obviously working in 3-D.

Victoria

yardwork

2009-09-30T15:59:00.000-07:00

I love the idea that Patrick's works convey of the union of form and chaos. It is a metaphor for this wild crazy existence and its ever changing relationship with the constant of nature. Nature taking on a new form by the hands of chaos or is it the other way around? Perhaps a dance of taking turns leading by both.
I think the way he described them as being "shelters of transition" harmonized with what I think I am personally experiencing in my life in academic ways, personal ways, spiritual ways. Like an open-air cocoon. There is something about his work that is deeper than I can perhaps express, a knowing-ness I can't wrap around just yet. I can't tell if it is a very primal display of communication between himself and the elements around him, no matter where he is, or perhaps it is some kind of fantastical child's play that has been matured and honored by giving a visual voice to these young saplings. Baudelaire's "Morale du joujou" comes to mind. The child's toy introduces the child, just by its play, into the world of art, music, poetry, inviting it with its bright colors and curious shapes. The play of artists is very similar to the play of child with a toy. Perhaps all artists have an intimate memory/connection to their toys this way which lead them down the path of their rapture into creation. Daugherty makes us these brilliant toys to invite us to the world of nature and we become the creation in a sense, in our childlike awe.
I feel his work brings all the elements into play without literally doing so. Fluid like water, warm like fire, cool like the wind, with roots of the Earth.