MixedMedia

This past weekend I spent a couple of days in Ithaca, New York at the invitation of someone who runs something called ‘The Level Green Institute’ – which appears to have several offshoots, among them something called “Arts at the Heart of a Sustainable World.” Anyway, the symposium, titled “Greening the Arts” was, though poorly attended, was able to pull in a really interesting group of panelists.

Though I am pretty open to working with just about anyone when it comes to the arts, I am particularly eager to meet artists and critics whose work intersects with development in some way. Which is what drew me to the gathering: while I am not, and do not really consider myself a “green artist” (even the “artist” label is questionable, since I rarely show my own work) I was interested to learn how my work as an educator overlaps with artists whose work takes some kind of stand with regard to human impact in the natural world. And there were some great folks there:

• Steven Siegel is a New York artist working and living in the lower Hudson Valley whose work incorporates detritus of the material world. The forum made little room for us to get to know each others’ work, but I found out more at http://www.stevensiegel.net and was both struck by the range of media and its familiarity via my own friendships with artists like Jeff Spaulding and  Greg Hannan.
• Victoria Romanoff is a preservationist and mixedmedia artist whose work has had a greater impact in her home town than any other artist I know. She restored her first 19th century barn in the 1970s and has since then become an advocate for local preservation. She shared with me a wonderful manifesto-like publication she co-authored on New York’s business façades as we toured her studio-office-home in a former fire station she and her partner restored. Her vigor reminds me of the work of the Canadian duo, Martha Fleming and Lyne Lapointe.
• Sam Bower runs something called the greenmuseum.org. Himself an artist, Sam is leading an effort to promote works that raise awareness about the environment through the creation of an online museum. I can’t speak to that too much – yet, as its all new to me… but hopefully more to come.

(more…)

Today I’m headed to Ithaca, New York to give a talk, run a workshop and in other ways participate in Earth Day celebrations that take place there each year through the Center for Environmental Sustainability (CES) which will sponsor,”GREENING THE ARTS.”  They’ve asked me to be part of an informal panel on Friday morning exploring the questions, “What IS ‘green’ art” and “Why is it important”?

Other panelists will hopefully include Liesel Fenner, Coordinator of Americans for the Arts’ Pubic Art Network; Sam Bowers, founder/director of greenmuseum.org; 2 local Ithaca artists who have curated ‘green’ art shows; and the director of Cornell University’s art museum. After the panel session, folks will be invited to form lunch groups to come up with their own definitions – and then to return for an afternoon Open Space aimed at generating action plans both for local next steps and for the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. We’ll also do a Peace Tiles workshop that Saturday.

This should be really cool. There’s only one glitch, which is that I’ve never thought of myself as a particularly “green” artist, neither in outlook nor technique. Put differently, this is not the standpoint from which I approach my artwork, although I can see many intersections. Which is why I’m excited: the connections to sustainability, development, and important frameworks like the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Now these I can get excited about.

(more…)

Today marks the final day of my work with Twinfield students. All in all it was a lovely experience. The students were so welcoming, and most eager to experiment and “play,” which is a big part of what its all about. I think its fair to say that they are really excited to see what in the world will be done with all of the images. So am I

So now I will begin the long and detail intensive process of cataloguing all of the tiles, and arranging them into the mosaic. Workplan looks something like:

• Photograph tiles
• Work with school to develop “source” image (might be a tile to create a fun micro-macro “find the source” game)
• Create composite image
• Number tiles
• Create directory (so people can find their own, friends’ etc by name
• Install

Something else I have thought of along the way – which hasn’t been approved yet – is to “float” some really elegant quotations about place just off the surface of the mosaic. I am thinking they could be etched (sandblasted) or screened onto the narrow (8″ x 72″ say) plexiglass strips and fastened 3-4″ off of the surface using narrow metal risers – like bolts without the threads. We’ll see how far that goes.

[From the Times Argus ] High school students, parents and teachers worked side by side in Twinfield’s cafeteria Tuesday, absorbed in combining paints, bits of paper, lettering and treasures they had brought from home to create tiles that express their sense of place. In another part of the building, the elementary students were creating their own “tiles,” using 8-inch squares of plywood. Ultimately, 480 tiles will be used to form a huge mosaic – perhaps a river – on a wall of the cafeteria.

Swirls of color revolved around a dark center on Steffany Yasus’ tile. “In my English and physics classes, we were talking about the universe,” the Plainfield junior explained. Thoreau’s words radiated from the core: “The world is but a canvas to our imagination.”

Across the table from her, Darcy Brett, a mathematics teacher, fitted a small map of the United States on the left side of her tile and a map of Europe on the right side, on top of a blue sea filled with a pattern of white birds. “My husband is from France and I’m from Vermont, and the birds represent all the coming and going,” she said. Her tile remained unfinished at the end of the day: She was looking for a bright bird to put in the middle.

Nearby, Lindsey Fowler, her blonde hair pinned up in a clasp, worked on a collage. Tears filled her eyes. The words “Mike” and “Inspire,” stood out among pictures of a big, happy boy surrounded by friends. With letters cut from a magazine she spelled, “We miss you.”

Mike was extraordinarily friendly, Fowler said.

(more…)

Poster I whipped out (I love Pages) for an upcoming mural project – February 11-13 – the largest one yet that I’ve been a part of – that will engage all students and staff in an exploration of the question, “What is my place?”

The aim is to encourage students to think about where they live, and how that informs their sense of identity. They’ll use this reflection as the basis for their creativity: mixed media collages on wood panel.

I am looking for some outstanding classroom resources that help young people think about place – physical features of community, the people who surround us, our institutions and of course the landscape and climate.

*I’d love to know if anyone has some ideas about age-appropriate instructional resources on this topic.*

The end result will be a 500+ piece mural that I’ll have the opportunity to use some mosaic software on to try and create an image within the image – perhaps the school mascot…