Dan Phillips: Not Merely Vernacular, Pt. 2
Dan Phillips, "Chateau," 2008. Courtesy Phoenix Commotion.
In my estimation, Phoenix Commotion’s ongoing project (founded around 1998 by Dan Phillips) does much more than simply supply a university town with a rich dose of local color. While Phillips and his crew are building upon traditions of southern vernacular art, which have made significant and often under-acknowledged contributions to the evolution of American art—perhaps most-recognizably through the work of Texas-native Robert Rauschenberg—their project simultaneously engages with issues enjoying currency in contemporary art discourse. Most notably, this involves the impetus to devote one’s art, including one’s artistic process and not just the finished project, to the goal of raising an ethical awareness of our interconnectedness to each other and to the natural world.
Phillips’s project, which decades ago may have simply been understood as an example of “outsider” art and the product of some “place apart” (psychologically, culturally, and geographically), is today implicated in an ongoing and evolving international debate. The members of the Commotion do not simply belong to a cultural group entirely removed from the reach of influences acting on other contemporary artists whose similarly-minded, if aesthetically-divergent projects, have received critical attention, such as Rirkrit Tiravanija’s The Land Foundation (begun 1998), Andrea Zittel’s A-Z West and A-Z East (West begun 1999 and East begun 1994), or Tyree Guyton’s The Heidelberg Project (begun 1987). The Phoenix Commotion shares with these projects an exploration of eco-friendly, low-cost solutions to design problems, and the commitment of one’s art to transforming local social conditions. But while Phillips has and continues to spread the philosophy of the Phoenix Commotion near and far, and while his project resonates with these other contemporary examples, the end products of his creative labors remain rooted in his homes of Huntsville. The Commotion’s ideas and methods may circulate in regional, national, and international circuits, but their final artworks stay resolutely put in a place that, in the end, is somewhat removed yet also intimately connected.
Dan Phillips: Not Merely Vernacular, Pt. I
Dan Phillips, "Tree House," 2008. Courtesy of Phoenix Commotion.
As a northerner recently transplanted to the Greater Houston area, I admit to having reservations about all things Texan. I have found this a tough place to love at first sight. Yet, this particular region nurtures a unique host of fascinating figures and issues in contemporary art, along with sometimes frustrating contradictions and striking visual treats—including a wealth of handmade signs and arresting juxtapositions of natural beauty confronting the manmade. In this and subsequent posts as a guest blogger, I hope to sketch out some contributions to contemporary art made by the creators, institutions, and museum professionals who have chosen to either make their homes in and around Houston, or have come here to reflect upon the region in site-specific and installation projects. In the process, I will also reflect on some of the ethical issues in contemporary art that living removed from more established art centers has allowed me to better flesh out.
On my first trip to Huntsville, where I teach art history at Sam Houston State University, I was given a drive-by tour of several structures built by Dan Phillips and his Phoenix Commotion team. Intrigued by what I saw, I visited his “tree house” (where my colleague Annie Strader is the current tenant), and last December I invited Phillips to speak to my Contemporary Art class about his project. For the past twelve years, Phillips and members of the Commotion, including his wife Marsha, have been committed to building affordable and visually-distinctive housing out of largely post-consumption building leftovers, waste from the fabrication of industrialized materials (including “landscape timbers,” a plywood by-product), and other free or discarded materials. Examples of Phillips’s sustainable building aesthetic include: a roof made from recycled license plates, floors made from wine corks, an artist’s studio ceiling lined with salvaged picture frame samples, and a range of other less-than-perfect or blemished building materials destined for the landfill that have been recovered and put into unexpected, unanticipated use.
Since 1996, the Phoenix Commotion, a for-profit rather than non-profit organization, has completed thirteen structures in Phillips’s hometown of Huntsville. In 2004, Phillips, with the cooperation of the city, established a warehouse where recyclable building materials are donated, stored, and then accessed by charitable groups and low-income housing projects. To achieve their aesthetic and ethical goal of increasing the availability of out of the ordinary, low-cost housing in Huntsville, Phillips and his crew are not only building, but have also created an alternative infrastructure that enables materials typically considered building “wastes” or “leftovers” to be creatively reused by the community.
Flash Points: Art + the Environment Wrap-Up
Pierre Huyghe, "Streamside Day," production still, 2003, Film and video transfers, 26 minutes, color, sound. Photo by Aaron S. Davidson. © Pierre Huyghe, courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris/New York.
The natural world is a marvel, a playground, an intrinsic adventure, a multi-layered curiosity, an embodiment of fear and absolute wonderment. It is an artists’ gym where one can exercise by wrapping his or her brain around concerns that affect us now and the efforts that sustain the pulsing planet that we inhabit. For the past few months, our blog discussion platform, Flash Points, has hosted a conversation on Art and the Environment. Together with our readers, we looked at how art reacts to the environment, and if it can be used as a way to contextualize and understand environmental concerns.
Flash Points Editor Rachel Craft kicked off the discussion:
From sustainability and alternative energy solutions, to green-collared jobs and maintaining a low carbon footprint, environmental concerns and how our world is addressing them is an ever-present issue. As artist Mark Dion stated [in the Art:21 Ecology episode], “We have a test ahead of us in terms of our relationship to the natural world. If we pass the test we get to keep the planet, but I don’t really see us doing a very good job of that right now.”
- Corinna Kirsch offered her insights on the importance of public art and sustainability in respect to the Twin Cities, Minnesota (Minneapolis / St. Paul), a forefront of what Grant Kesler of October Magazine might call an example of contemporary co-authorship. What could be more contemporary than a network of institutions and individuals collaboratively utilizing a public space in the name of art?
- What about becoming an activist? Stacy Ward Kelly speaks about the importance of using art as a tool to advocate for the preservation, restoration, and improvement of the natural environment.
- Julia Walker points out that many of the changes that need to occur in order for real sustainable architecture to thrive must take place in policy-making at the municipal, state, and federal levels.
- Nova Benway talks about art in relationship to sincerity and looks at sculptor David Olsen, whose work focuses on Newtown Creek in Brooklyn.
- Anna Kryczka quotes John Dewey and the understanding of art as an experience that is embodied in the Chinati Foundation: “every successive part flows freely without unfilled blanks into what ensues.” A moment of coherence—where art, architecture, landscape, and activity all enliven one another—is the art of the Chinati Foundation.
- Catherine Wagley looks at what happens when nature takes over. Much of the talk about climate change and green living focuses on common missions and shared responsibility to nature. So how much of this conversation is really about preserving ourselves?
- Catherine also attended “What’s at Stake? New Topographics and the Man-Altered Landscape,” a LACMA symposium focused on restaging the 1975 exhibition with regard to curatorial practice, urbanism, environmentalism, and architecture.
- Inhale. Exhale. Whew. Nicole Caruth explores the power of positive thinking in relationship to climate change.
- Kevin Buist sees the link between the work of Robert Smithson and Eames Demetrios in how they both marry natural sites with epic mythologies.
Among the many related posts of the last few months, there were numerous interviews that focused on art and the environment in different ways, including:
- Flash Points Editor Rachel Craft interviewed David R. Collens, Director and Curator of Storm King Art Center, about the institution’s focus on the relationship between art and nature. How does the interaction between art and nature inform the core of Storm King’s programming?
- Andrea Zittel is building a floating island in Indiana. Richard McCoy interviews her about this project.
- The wonder years are here to stay. Find some slug eggs, make the light bulb light up, get the microscope to focus, harvest a tomato, nurture a seed…it’s wonderful! Joe Fusaro interviews Abbe Futterman, former graduate of the Pratt Institute and now a science teacher at the Earth School, about the importance of drawing and scientific illustration as a unique way of exploring the world.
- Nicole Sansone conducts a “blogalogue” with EcoArtTech, a collaborative platform for digital environmental art (also here), as well as talks with ETeam.
- Matthias Merkel Hess interviews Catherine Page Harris, a professor of the new Art and Ecology program at the University of New Mexico.
Honing in on another facet of the conversation, artists speak about their artistic processes, projects and recent exhibitions:
- Roni Horn discusses the paradoxical identity and dependency of water, paired with scenes of Icelandic landscapes in this video exclusive.
- Alexis Avlamis: “I use the highly fluid state of encaustic to document and elaborate constant movement and changes reminiscent of weather, rock and cloud patterns, veins, markings, organs, rivers, cast shadows, biomorphic figures, and creatures…”
- Eirik Johnson returned to the Northwest to make work that addressed the complicated relationship between the region’s landscape, industries that rely upon natural resources, and the communities they support.
- Ariana Page Russell uses her skin condition as a tool and her body as a canvas in self-exploration.
- Noah Fischer writes about his site-specific installation, Electric Forest: Made in Troy.
- Katie Holten features her current project, Tree Museum, a public artwork in the Bronx, New York.
Is there anything that you would like to add to this discussion? Who are the artists in your community and what institution(s) do you see utilizing art as a tool to understand our environment?
The Island in 100 Acres: An Interview with Andrea Zittel
Andrea Zittel is building a floating island in Indiana. And early next summer, a college student from the nearby Herron School of Art & Design will climb aboard and take up full-time residency as it floats on the lake that is in the heart of soon-to-be-open 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
As part of this site’s Flash Points series, I invited Ms. Zittel to talk about this project and the way it responds to the natural world, as well as to discuss some of its conservation issues.
Andrea Zittel's island at 100 Acres. Photo: Indianapolis Museum of Art.
Richard McCoy: Will you describe where you were and what you were thinking about when you when you first thought of making a floating island for 100 Acres?
Andrea Zittel: I’ve been working on various ideas for habitable islands for over ten years, but it isn’t so often that you find an institution with a protected body of water willing to take on the challenge of maintaining a floating work of art. The idea of an island appeals to me as representation of many of the values that we strive for in our 21st-century culture: individualism, independence, autonomy, and self-sufficiency. Yet at the same time, these are the same desires that isolate us and lessen collective social and political power. I am fascinated at how the things that set us free are also the same things that oppress us; you could say that the concept of the deserted island is both our greatest fantasy and our greatest fear.
But regardless (and probably even because) of these complicated readings, I’m drawn to structures that generate a kind of personal autonomy for their inhabitants. In 1998, I made a very large habitable island in Scandinavia that eventually had to be destroyed because it was too large to be maintained. Fortunately, the project for 100 Acres is hopefully in for the long haul, and better yet, the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) will allow a series of residents to live on the island over successive summers. The fact that the Indianapolis island will be a living and evolving project with multiple occupant/collaborators makes it particularly exciting.
Small-scale model for Andrea Zittel's island at 100 Acres. Photo: Indianapolis Museum of Art.
RM: How did you first represent your ideas for this project (with drawings, sculpture forms, digital images)?
AZ: I had been working on a series of models for quite some time, so by the time that I received an invitation from the IMA, I knew exactly what I wanted it to look like. The next step was to make a working model for the fabricators, so I hired Steve Kim to make digital images of the island as well as a laser-cut model and scaled drawings that could be used by Smilee Barnacle (of the Los Angeles-based Barnacle Bros.) for the actual construction.
Andrea Zittel's island for 100 Acres being constructed at Barnacle Bros. Photo: Indianapolis Museum of Art.
RM: I recently read this quote on Robert Smithson’s webpage about “A Provisional Theory of Non-Sites”:
By drawing a diagram, a ground plan of a house, a street plan to the location of a site, or a topographic map, one draws a ‘logical two dimensional picture.’ A ‘logical picture’ differs from a natural or realistic picture in that it rarely looks like the thing it stands for. It is a two-dimensional analogy or metaphor — A is Z.
Robert Smithson, "The Non-Site" (an indoor earthwork), Photostat, 12 1/2" x 10 1/2", from www.robertsmithson.com
With this in mind, can you talk about how this has evolved from an idea or concept to what is now floating on the lake here in Indianapolis?
AZ: I interpret Smithson’s “logical picture” as one that refers to the relationships generated within the work rather than the external appearance of it. I would say that the island in its current condition (completed but uninhabited) is still only one element of the larger equation that will ultimately end up as the “work.” In this sense, it is still only a concept, but once the first inhabitant arrives and begins to add the accoutrements of his or her life, it will become activated into something that is more complete and multi-dimensional. At that time, it will make a far more interesting “logic picture.”
Wonder-Igniters: An Interview with Abbe Futterman
Student work, The Earth School
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting The Earth School in New York’s East Village and at one point noticed a science classroom through a small window that immediately struck me- there were plants, bones, drawing materials, cabinets, books, field guides, lots of sunlight and carefully arranged tables and workstations. The room itself was like a beautiful business card for the teacher, Abbe Futterman, whom I’d never met. Anyone could tell this place meant business. There wasn’t a child in the classroom but you could clearly see that the students and their teacher took pride in the work that was accomplished here. After asking a few questions I was quickly introduced to Abbe and pleasantly surprised to find out that she is a Pratt Institute graduate who often teaches science through the arts. Below is a conversation we had following that visit.
JF: You work as a science teacher that graduated Pratt Institute. That alone is interesting. Tell me about that transition.
AF: It was more of the shift from art to the art of teaching because I began as a 3rd and 4th grade teacher. Only later did I become a science teacher. When I discovered how much creativity there is in teaching, it became my first love. I especially enjoy teaching science because it captures the imagination and wonder of the students and myself. Description and documentation are also very important to me and, I believe, for learning science. The processes of Audubon, Darwin, and McClintock have influenced how I view science. Teaching young people life drawing techniques gets them to slow down, observe, and notice the structure of things. Equally important to me is that my students experience what Eleanor Duckworth calls “the having of wonderful ideas,” which I interpret as the imaginative act of discovery and synthesis and which is very akin to a powerful aesthetic experience. I think these acts of the imagination empower and enlighten children and adults similarly.
JF: Can you describe some of the situations or lessons where you use drawing in your classroom? Are there particular artists that have made their way into your curriculum?
AF: I use drawing or scientific illustration in various ways with my students. For example, if they are studying biology using snails, or mealworms, or plants, or pillbugs, I have them do large detailed studies. I teach this technique starting in Kindergarten right through fifth grade- explicit life drawing techniques that I call “Looking and Drawing.” I model first using pencil and an art eraser. I implore them to look a LOT and draw a LITTLE; look a LOT and draw a little more; to erase as needed; and redraw. I emphasize the looking: “Is this plant the exact green that’s in the paint set?” “Is the entire plant the same green?” Then I show them some basic mixing and blending techniques. Students often draw and then label the parts. They get to draw microscopes, flowers, fruit, etc.
Student work, The Earth School
JF: You mentioned enjoying teaching science because it captures the wonder and imagination of both the students and yourself. I teach visual art for the same reason. Do you feel that teachers need to have a sense of wonder in order to teach effectively? If so, how do you keep that sense, that spark, alive in your own work?
AF: Children are by nature “wonder-igniters” since they live in the world of imagination and discovery. The hard part is listening well and not getting carried off completely by the day-to-day logistics of classroom life. I think teachers need to stay open to their students and to know each one well enough to be awed by him/her and his/her work. The opposite of that– not seeing/knowing the person, the individual– is what drains our positive energy from teaching.
Public Art and Sustainability
The Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Having recently moved to Minnesota, I became intrigued by the amount of funding and grant programs available for the arts, including many initiatives directed toward funding public art. Although asking why public art and the environment have been recognized as reciprocal concerns is a weighty question, it may simply be that in cities like Minneapolis/St. Paul, where municipal funding for the arts already co-exists with green initiatives, the two go hand in hand.
The permanent placement of public art has demanded an awareness of environmental concerns, from the safety of materials to how normative weather conditions will affect artworks over time. The Weisman Art Museum (where I am currently employed) administers the public art program at the University of Minnesota and has a full-time Curator of Public Art. While this may seem like a small gesture, it allows for art on campus to be treated like any other historical object in a museum collection, requiring routine conservation and discussions of proper storage and exhibition. It is necessary for cities with public art collections to treat them just as such—as collections—whereby the city can continue to maintain them year after year. Maintenance is a huge issue, and with dwindling resources, it’s easy to postpone taking care of art collections. Minneapolis has a maintenance fund for its collection, but there are many works not in the city’s collection that are ignored.
While storage and exhibition in a museum can be regulated through temperature control and security guards (to a degree), public art can often succumb to problems such as lawnmowers scraping against sculpture or the oxidation of bronze sculptures. These issues point to a difficult question for public works—what happens when no one is closely watching the art?
Inside the Artist’s Studio: Alexis Avlamis
Alexis Avlamis at his studio at the Vermont Studio Center, Winter 2009
Alexis Avlamis is a Greek painter based in Athens, Greece, with a BFA degree with honors from the Athens School of Fine Arts (2002). Soon after, in 2004, he pursued a Master’s degree at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI, but a year later he deferred admission indefinitely due to personal and financial reasons. Some say that everything happens for a reason and in Alexis’s case, I believe that’s true.
Upon his return to Athens, he committed to his studio practice and to the creative path he had chosen, which was no other than encaustic painting. His tenacity is inspiring, in terms of the amount of research that has gone into controlling and mastering his craft.
I had only been familiar with his work for couple of months before I first visited his studio two years ago. A potent scent of natural wax had literally soaked the entire apartment, and the view of his outdoor working area at the time was just dazzling. As I walked out, the soft humming that I was aware of from the get-go could now be attributed to the countless bees. They were visiting just like I was – drawn by the myriad wax blocks of various qualities spanning from the US to China. While Alexis was briefing me on encaustic painting, I was becoming more and more uncomfortable, as the bees’ perseverance to befriend me was a rather animated experience. It must’ve been early summer and we stretched his massive canvas in the front garden. Heating plates, containers, pigments—you name it—it was all there; this was a painter at work.
Alexis is currently in residence at the Vermont Studio Center (VSC). Luckily, I had the opportunity to view his latest body of work early this fall and I had to tell you about it. He has created many large-scale works of luscious and luminous surfaces – ideal for one to meditate on the world that unfolds within them. Inch by inch, theriomorphic creatures, mystical landscapes, and fragile details occupy the space of the canvases. Highly controlled strokes and a rich palette give life to the emotional menagerie of the artist. Extremely hard to photograph, one can only get a real sense of Alexis’s world up close.
Alexis is a gentleman and a dear friend, and I am inviting you to continue on Inside the Artist’s Studio with me in 2010, with this first post for the new year.
Alexis Avlamis, "Unity," 2008. Encaustic on canvas, 180 x 240 cm (5.9 x 7.9 feet).
Georgia Kotretsos: What does the traditional encaustic technique bring to your ornate microcosms? Is there a contemporary take on the technique?
Alexis Avlamis: I was first introduced to the archaic technique of encaustic (hot-wax painting) in 1998, at a Benaki Museum exhibition in Athens. It focused on the relationship between Byzantine art and the painterly traditions of antiquity. It was the first time I had the opportunity to observe up-close the art of mummy portraiture, or better yet, Fayum portraits (mid-1st century through the beginning of the 3rd century). What captivated me was the lifelike appearance of the portraits—their luminosity, sensual beauty, and permanence. Through lots of experimentation with the technique, I came to a realization that would serve as an ideal vehicle for me to explore the ambiguous, improvisational nature of my imagery. Also by doing extensive research, I realized that paradoxically, the oldest easel painting method dates back to the 5th century.
So, the multiple extraordinary and contradictory qualities of waxes and plant resins offered me the stimuli to discover an unsurpassable wide range of unique painting qualities and techniques. I have always been attracted to raw and unadulterated natural substances. An aspect of my practice is to engage with sustainable agriculture; thus sourcing pure wax from local bee farms came naturally to me. In that way, I had a chance to closely observe and appreciate the delicate interdependence of bees’ life cycle and of those who keep them. Spending time with the beehives feeds my imagination as I experience the buzz of activity. In addition, the discussions I often have with the hospitable bee farmers have helped me come to understand how global warming has seriously impacted their way of life. I value their conversations tremendously because I share their concerns.
In Earnest
David Olsen, "Witness," mixed media, 2008.
The last artist I’ll include in my discussion of earnestness, or what one might also call exuberant seriousness, is David Olsen, a sculptor who has spent the last several years documenting actions using his work on Newtown Creek in Brooklyn. The creek is one of the most polluted waterways in the country, and the sculptures are, in a certain sense, tools for healing. Made from natural materials like clay, wax, and rope, they employ humble filtration devices to purify tiny amounts of water, or crystals intended to absorb negative forces. One recent work, Witness (2008), is a seal skull with crystals embedded in the eye sockets. A rope attaches the skull to a glass buoy, so when it is lowered into the water it can float through the depths, “seeing” and collecting information or negative energy, until it is retrieved by the artist. Olsen adopts the identity of “Vulture” for these actions, wearing a handmade protective helmet and suit to mimic the bird’s heightened immune system. Of course, these activities have negligible impact on the rampant pollution of the waterway. Olsen’s deliberate mixing of pragmatic and mystical solutions to the problem further obfuscate their effectiveness, while retaining the urgent desire for change.
David Olsen as Vulture.
These past few weeks, I’ve clearly chosen artists working not only in a variety of different media but also in different historical contexts and with divergent concerns, but perhaps there is something Stuart Sherman, Eve Essex, Bibi Calderaro, and Olsen all share: the desire to make an offering while leaving the reaction or result open-ended. Sherman once claimed, “I’m influenced the most by myself as a child. I don’t feel so very different from when I was 5.” Yet the complex work I’ve discussed is not naïve. It recalls the pure childish gesture of opening one’s hand simply to show what is in it, shaded with the adult knowledge that there is a peculiar strength in such simplicity.
David Olsen, "Vessel Placement," 2008.
Inhale. Exhale. Whew.
Marisa Olson, "Assisted Living," 2008. Performance still. Courtesy the Artist.
In the New York Times video Copenhagen 101, reporter Tom Zeller asks people in Times Square what they know about the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNCCC) in Copenhagen. You know how these things go—Americans are, for the most part, painfully unaware. And to tell you the truth, had Zeller approached me, I would have been as clueless as most of the folks he interviewed. Like them, I’m conscious of climate issues and try to do my part. Yet I hadn’t bothered to find out what was taking place during this critical 12-day forum with worldwide ramifications.
Upon reading more about the UNCCC, I realized not only how large and multifaceted the discourse (“climate change” and “global warming” are umbrella terms for a range of environmental and social problems), but also how scientific. To try and wrap my mind around the issues at hand, I attended two public forums: Global Warming: Artists on Climate Change at the Brooklyn Academy of Music; and the New York City Food and Climate Summit (NYCFCS). I also chatted with artist Marisa Olson who was slated to participate in New Life Copenhagen, an art festival and social experiment organized to coincide with the UNCCC; it was in our conversation that some of the dots began to connect.
Olson was invited to Copenhagen by the artist-run community Wooloo.org to engage the “social architecture” of the UNCCC, and Wooloo’s corresponding hospitality art project. Working with a team of volunteers, they prearranged free stay for more than 3,000 activists and climate campaigners in the homes of local residents. I had hoped to get a feel for what was happening in Copenhagen from Olson. However, due to unforeseen circumstances she was unable to attend. (Her friends, The Yes Men, took her place.) Still, her upcoming performance in New York City, in addition to a few earlier works, responds to the natural world far beyond the UNCCC.
In February, Olson will present Whew Age at PS122, in which she’ll play a guru-type character dressed in “somewhat weird, neon, futuristic yoga clothes.” As her self-made relaxation videos play in the background, she will lead audiences through a series of relaxation techniques and visualization exercises: “Picture yourself next to a cool melting glacier.” Inhale…exhale. Olson’s directives serve as a platform to talk about climate change — the relationship of the body to the air you breathe — as well as the role stress and anxiety, as some theorists suggest, play in our climate, and the power of positive thinking. “I don’t really think that people sitting down and meditating and saying ‘om’ for five minutes a day is going to fix things,” Olson says, “but it’s a way to have a conversation.”
Art and Ecology at the University of New Mexico
Land Arts of the American West, art site at Powell Lake, Utah
There is plenty of environmentally-minded art these days, but very few academic classes on the subject, let alone degree programs. That changed this fall when the University of New Mexico launched Art and Ecology as an outgrowth of its ten-year old program, Land Arts of the American West. In its first year, the program already includes one graduate student, dozens of undergrads and two full-time professors. UNM Art and Ecology professor Catherine Page Harris spoke with me about how the program started, its relationship with other programs at UNM, and the future of ecological art.
Matthias Merkel Hess: Was the creation of the program driven by student demand or by the faculty?
Catherine Page Harris: Art and Ecology at UNM started as a response to the needs of students who were enrolling in the Land Arts program, but didn’t have a background in ecological concerns, or in the work of ecological artists. The program’s chair, Bill Gilbert, was leading these 50-day trips and found that students needed a lot of knowledge that just wasn’t readily available. He was interested in helping them expand the experience and worked closely with former sculpture professor Basia Irland to create an early curriculum.
MMH: Are there other schools that have similar Art and Ecology programs?
CPH: The only other school I know of with an Art and Ecology program is in Falmouth, England. There was one at Dartington, England, but at the moment, I think they are no longer accepting students. A similar program is starting at West Virginia University.
MMH: In an August 2008 greenmuseum blog post, Saving Eco-Art From Death by Cliché, the writer noted that “…even at greenmuseum.org we see a lot of art that is planet-devoted but aesthetically uninspiring and unoriginal.” How do you encourage students to make work that does more than simply re-state known environmental concerns and is also worth looking at and thinking about?
CPH: Well, as a pedagogical strategy, I believe in an old modernist’s statement. Stravinsky wrote in his book, Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons, “The more art is limited, the more it is free.” He is talking about his own choices to create a structure for himself with the 12-tone system. As I teach, I encourage students to create parameters so they no longer have to be overwhelmed by all the choices available. We also look at published work and discuss it in all contexts, aesthetic, political, emotional.
MMH: Does your program collaborate with other departments at the university, such as ecology or history?
CPH: Right now, we have a collaboration with the UNM’s Sevilleta Long Term Ecological Research site that is proving very fruitful, with them funding a summer program at the research station for two art undergraduates. I am also working with the Sustainable Studies Program and an environmental law professor. We also have strong ties with both landscape architecture and architecture, since I was an adjunct there for three years and, as our student body grows, we are planning cross-disciplinary courses with them.
