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, "Budweiser House," 2008. Courtesy Phoenix Commotion.

A retired dance professor, well-read intellectual, and skilled craftsperson, Phillips is himself more than a “naïf.” Like his project, he is a conglomerate of complex cultural influences. He is perfectly comfortable seamlessly shifting among multiple modes of presenting himself and his work. I have heard him eloquently discuss his creative process in relation to the philosophies of Martin Heidegger and John Dewey, elaborate on the political implications of building a house inspired by the Budweiser beer can design in the Bible Belt, and explain the relationship of his project to the historical examples of southern vernacular architecture from which it draws inspiration. Through such presentations, Phillips effectively demythologizes ideas of “the folk” that have problematically been associated with notions of essential cultural origins and that in American history have been used to construct and solidify perceptions of certain groups (often black people and poor whites) by relegating them to an ingrained, natural condition of unchanging “folkhood.”

Additionally, the “folk” elements that persist in Phillips’s project—in his use of the discards of the cultural mainstream and the privileging of a taste for making do rather than making perfect—are self-consciously celebrated and not an ironic point of reference. Phillips’s project reclaims a “folk” aesthetic as a positive identity for both the Commotion team and for those members of the community who occupy its homes. The project transforms vernacular style into much more than a cipher for naïveté, nostalgia, or anachronism. While resurrecting and creatively translating the promise of American homesteading (a “folk” dream?) for a diverse “working poor” population of Huntsville, Phillips, who has consciously chosen to take a step away from the academy and back into the region’s history, seems to have found a productive way forward. It appears to me that Phoenix Commotion offers a recession-weary community much more than a quaint throw-back to a better time. Rather, Phoenix Commotion’s project, like those of Zittel, Tiravanija, and Guyton, commits itself to a broader, brighter cultural future–a future not just for a small eastern Texas town, but for the planet.

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.

In his process, Phillips employs an apprenticeship system to bypass the alienation typically associated with standardized labor, requires the assistance of the future residents of the homes in the construction process, and whenever possible utilizes and teaches craft traditions that have largely been displaced by mechanical means. Such choices are motivated by Phillips’s insight that the “gobs of waste” we are currently producing–including wasting the labor of perfectly capable local hands–are largely by-products of a cultural order that insists on equating beauty with perfect, standardized form. Phillips openly calls attention to the fact that such methods are not original and that they have been and continue to be used in communities where building by recycling is a necessity.

While Phillips could not be considered an art celebrity by the standards of international biennials and fairs, and demonstrates little or no concern with the vogues of the international art world, he has recently been enjoying generous national media attention, including an appearance on The Today Show and a September 2, 2009 article in the Home & Garden section of The New York Times. The Phoenix Commotion, which operates with a slim profit margin, has also recently expanded to include a Design Store. An overview of recent press and the completed and current Commotion projects are documented on the website.

In media coverage, Phillips is often explicitly and sometimes implicitly presented as an American “folk hero,” whose do-it-yourself building projects offer a tangible, workable solution to both the reality that the middle-class American dream of owning one’s own home is becoming increasingly out of reach and also to the current environmental crisis of overfull landfills and escalating chemical pollution. Admittedly I, too, am drawn to Phillips’s work for these reasons and am tempted to frame him in similarly heroic terms. In addition to his project’s ability to foster a true, sustained sense of community (no small feat these days), to promote an eco-friendly aesthetic, and to return a sense of control of one’s own environment to an immediate, local level in an increasingly globalizing world, Phillips and the members of his team are magnanimously generous and whole-heartedly committed. The Commotion’s enthusiasm for their work appears boundless and is contagious.

But while I appreciate the work of Phillips and Phoenix Commotion for all of these reasons, I am also struck by the relationship of their project to others that explore place-making as a theme and insist on entwining artistic processes with pressing local needs. In the follow-up to this post, I will elaborate further on some of these connections.

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?

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.”

Barnacle Bros. assembling Andrea Zittel's island at 100 Acres. Photo: Indianapolis Museum of Art.

RM: Now that the island is in Indianapolis, is it reasonable for us to consider or imagine a new kind of “logic picture” for the island, one that provides a framework by which the project will live while it is here at the IMA?

AZ: If so, this framework would map a series of evolving relationships that take place over time but in a single space. The island, as we have built it, provides a framework that I feel a lone individual can easily work with. It is on the scale of a small room or large tent. There is an outdoor area with seating and a deck that connects to the water. The interior has a kitchen area, a spot for a portable toilet, and enough room for a bed and table and something to sit on, but the first inhabitant will have to map this area by building it out to satisfy their specific needs and not my projected ones. Then what the second inhabitant does to the residue of the first will be even more interesting. I’m curious to see how each resident works with both the framework that I’ve provided and the residue of what is left from former occupants.

Andrea Zittel discusses her island with students from Herron School of Art & Design. Photo: Indianapolis Museum of Art.

RM: On the homepage of your website I encountered this statement:

The A-Z enterprise encompasses all aspects of day to day living. Home furniture, clothing, food all become the sites of investigation in an ongoing endeavor to better understand human nature and the social construction of needs.

I’ve had this statement in mind as I watched the crew from Barnacle Bros. construct the island. Will you distill the essence of the island that must be preserved in order for it to function on the terms of A-Z enterprises?

AZ: It should be a living, breathing, evolving work in order to retain the essence of my practice. It is important that there be unknowns, some collaborations, probably a few (hopefully reconciled) conflicts, and some very dimensional and unanticipated experiences connected to this work.

Andrea Zittel inspecting the assembly of her island at 100 Acres. Photo: Indianapolis Museum of Art.

RM: Conversely, how would it cease to function; what could make it fail to function as your work of art?

AZ: I think that the one way that it would fail is if it remains a proposal with no actual activation.

RM: The island seems to be responding to and creating a new aspect of the Indianapolis environment. However, the way this environment currently is set up within 100 Acres, it can only be activated by a resident living on the island. Can you talk about the environment or environments that this project encompasses?

AZ: I’m not quite sure if I understand this question exactly but I think that you are talking about an environment (my island) operating within the context of another environment (100 Acres)–and how these two work together.

Instead of describing physical properties, I would like to talk about the social relationship between the two environments. The island will be a highly personalized space within a public arena and in that regard, we have carefully thought about aspects of island living, such as access (the public won’t have access unless the resident invites them on board) and the resident, hired by the museum as a sort of “park ranger” who will spend time in the park talking to visitors and sharing his/her experiences with them. This isn’t a traditional way of making a sculpture public, but it is an interesting experiment that will draw upon the viewer’s capabilities for  communication, projection, and fantasization.

Andrea Zittel's island at 100 Acres. Photo: Indianapolis Museum of Art.

RM: Do you have any guidance or suggestions for the Herron students who will be competing to live on the island?

AZ: I just hope that the Herron students can be as open as possible to the personal aspects of the experience and to try to use it as a means of experimentation and/or exploration, rather than feeling like it has to be an “exhibit” done solely for a public audience.

Looking through the window in Andrea Zittel's island at 100 Acres. Photo: Indianapolis Museum of Art.

RM: Do you have any guidance or suggestions for me as to the best way to care for your island?

AZ: Just treat it as you would a home. Respect the wear and tear that seems meaningful and try to preserve that, but clean and maintain parts of the island that begin to feel worn down or abused. (The differentiation is often an intuitive one, as discerning which is which can sometimes be a challenge!)

Andrea Zittel's island this winter at 100 Acres. Photo: Indianapolis Museum of Art.

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 3^rd and 4^th 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.

JF: What does students becoming empowered through using their imagination look and sound like in your science classroom?

AF: Finding slug eggs, making the bulb light up, getting the microscope to focus, seeing cells for the first time, nurturing a seed, harvesting a tomato, catching the mealworm beetle as it “hatches” out of its pupa, making a “floater” sink and a “sinker” float, building a taller block building, getting a marble to run through a maze. Discovery that is the result of an imaginative act– one’s own “wonderful idea”– is a powerful thing. I believe that when children experience their own agency in this way, they learn that they can change the world.

Abbe's classroom

JF: I noticed when visiting your school that you encourage learning inside and outside the classroom…. literally. Can you talk more about what your classroom setup is like?

AF: My science classroom consists of a large room with tables, a carpeted meeting area, and an extensive library. It houses a great collection of natural objects that are on display and available for the children to explore: giant pine cones, bones, rocks, shells, fossils, preserved specimens. It is well equipped with tools and equipment for science exploration and documentation: Microscopes, many kinds of scales, timers, measuring cups, art materials, junk boxes, etc. There are usually some tanks of living things: currently stick bugs, slugs, snails, pillbugs. We are also fortunate to have an outdoor annex as our school garden. It is entered by walking up a few stairs in the classroom and then through a large window. The garden is an organic edibles garden with about sixty planting barrels, a “free digging zone,” a compost pile, and storage sheds. It’s long and thin- about 10′ x 90′.

Abbe's classroom- detail

JF: Earlier you said, “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..” How do you stay open? How has art helped you get to know your students better?

AF: Listening to kids and looking closely at their work without judging is a discipline that requires an open mind. Working in the current high-stakes testing environment, teachers tend to limit their observations by making quick judgments or interpretations. When a child makes something, it is their mark on the world for us to see. I think it is a very pure way of getting to know a young person. I’ve studied archives of a single child’s work over the span of a dozen years and been amazed at how much continuity there is. It’s still surprising to me that people start exploring themes and images from such a young age and keep returning to the ones that resonate.

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?

Many initiatives have taken place that put the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota) at the forefront of developments in public art. Included within a handful of cities in the United States that follow a “percent for art program”—Philadelphia being the first to pass an ordinance that requires 1% of municipal building costs to go toward the funding and maintenance of public art—the Twin Cities also boasts an Art in Public Places program, the journal Public Art Review, a handful of non-profits dedicated solely to public art, and public art programs administered by area museums. How sustainability has been discussed in the Twin Cities involves more than a notion regarding environmental practices and re-use of materials; it also includes treating art practice as a profession.

In conversation with Jack Becker, Executive Director of Forecast Public Art, a non-profit that also publishes Public Art Review, I asked, “When did issues of sustainability become a relevant issue for public art, and who were the most active proponents of sustainability?” Regarding the intertwined history of art and the environment, he noted that:

The eco-movement in public art began in the 1970s but it wasn’t referred to as “sustainability” and it wasn’t widespread. In the past five years, that has changed. Artists have been at the forefront, and now commissioning agencies are starting to incorporate that criteria more often. LED lighting, for example, is in the majority now. Recycling materials and reducing waste is high on the list of criteria. With a few exceptions, foundations have not been using this term in their criteria for funding; however, they are becoming more responsive to this practice, as is the general public.

Forecast Public Art offers a variety of annual grants for artists to research and develop art projects, without the necessary objective of seeing these projects through to completion. These grants are akin to those given to professors at a college or university level for further development in their respective specialties. Commenting on this aspect of Forecast Public Art, Jack Becker sees this as a “model for supporting artists as independent producers. It is the opposite of commissioning, in that we ask artists what they want to do in public and then give them funding and technical support.” These models of sustainability go beyond environmental concerns to include the sustainability of the artist.

Grant Kester has recently described contemporary art as a practice “displaced from the level of independent ideation on the part of the artist as an indeterminate, [a] collectively authored exchange among multiple interlocuters” (“Questionnaire on ‘The Contemporary,’” October no. 130, Fall 2009). According to this logic, what could be more contemporary than public art, whose discursive networks show art as mediated by not just an artist, but also the various non-profits, city governments, and sites of commercial enterprise? Due to public art’s necessary involvement with the political and social elements of urban infrastructure, it has reveled in a vibrant discourse on how art engages with issues of sustainability, the environment, and the treatment of artists as wage-laborers. The policies enacted by public art organizations offer frameworks for sustainable art practices and funding models that can be utilized beyond the sphere of public art.

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-1^st century through the beginning of the 3^rd 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 5^th 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.

As a process-oriented painter, I was fascinated by the demanding and labor-intensive character of encaustic painting. 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.

Fungus, photograph taken by the artist.

I set myself free to the unpredictability of the medium rather than a controlled process, choosing to solidify individual moments and evoke memories, sounds, and smells. I utilize the hot wax paint to build a gestural thin-to-thick relief, gloss versus matte textures, impasto-like luminous paths, grids, stripes, dots, drips, beams, and figures. Different applications include: embossing and embedding plant elements, scumbling, scraping, incising, fusing, and applying various sources of heat with the help of heat guns, lamps, hot-plates, torches, and a heated stylus, as well as the sun. I seal traces of emotions, impulses, and psychological states as evidence of my engagement with encaustic’s responsiveness. I use my hands to impart an enamel-like glaze to the painting surface. I employ encaustic’s enigmatic attributes to convey various visual worlds and mental states.

Alexis Avlamis, "Under Siege," 2008. Encaustic on canvas, 250 x 220 cm (8.2 x 7.2 feet).

Encaustic emerged again in the 20th century as a powerful aesthetic force facilitated by modern technology’s possibilities. Jasper Johns applied encaustic in his well-known painting Flag (1954-55), in order to bypass the slow drying time of enamel paints. This was followed by Brice Marden, Lynda Benglis, and successive generations who are continuing to use encaustic.

GK: How do you and your work relate to nature?

AA: I consider myself lucky to have been raised between a metropolitan city and the countryside of the Ionian island of Kefalonia, experiencing nature and its biodiversity there. As a kid, mountain ranges and natural phenomena seemed to be intimidating, evoking both fears and wonder.

Wood, photo taken by the artist.

I learned to pay attention–observe sounds, smells, vision, textures, patterns, and light casting shadows on the terrain. All this multi-sensory information was, and still is, invaluable to me. It charges my drive for exploration and through these experiences, allows me to absorb the surrounding environment. I realized that seeing and visualizing brings personal awareness into play and demands active engagement. In this dreaming state, both night and day, inaccessible ideas may become realities. I build and compose different groups of images from these illusionary states, leading me to esoteric landscapes. Through these journeys, I gain a heightened sense of whimsy, which in return infuses my practice.

GK: Your work mirrors the force behind your paintings — the highly imaginative and rich world of an artist, whose sensitivity seems rare. Where does the imagery you so delicately paint come from?

AA: My art practice stems mainly from various forms of natural and manmade organisms. The interrelation of hikes, natural patterns, line forms, maps, aerial views, world mythologies, films, comics, and epic poems all feeds my work. My emotional reasoning, memories, impulses, imagination, fantasy, and sensory impressions function as a metaphoric realm, which penetrates into the/my unconscious. My own intuitive way of composing a personal vocabulary creates symbiotic relationships between the various characters that appear on my canvas. Sometimes the imagery reflects the otherworldliness of contemporary society, mythological figures, pop culture, everyday objects, and architecture, as well as many other components.

Forms and movement in the world outside of man are duplicated within the human organism. When you understand a thing outside of yourself you are actually recognizing something that is felt within you.

Alexis Avlamis, "Overflow," 2008. Encaustic on canvas, 160 x 250 cm (5.2 x 8.2 feet).

GK: Talk to me about your residency in Vermont. How important was it for you to find yourself in an art community where painting and drawing is a 24/7 affair?

AA: I am not often engaging with visual artists and writers in a communal creative environment or setting. Living and working in such a unique atmosphere offers me a space to share common hopes and concerns with my peers. Also, meeting many creative individuals from different cultural backgrounds and countries enriches the dialogue among us. The community functions as a nest that simultaneously contains the individual and the like-minded. There is an astounding amount of free thinking that is manifested artistically.

Alexis Avlamis, mixed media on cold-pressed watercolor paper, 150 x 150 cm (4.9 x 4.9 feet), 2009

Prior to my stay here at VSC, I was totally overwhelmed by a recent family crisis. This shift has been very beneficial for me because it boosted my spirit, by allowing me to regain my faith and rhythm in my work. Being exposed to a totally different physical environment yielded a new outlook and also enriched the visual content of my imagery. A full program, which includes open studios, slide talks, visiting artists, critiques, and social activities is a fulfilling experience, which in turn met my expectations. This equal level of inspiration among the residents, has established a professionalism and integrity towards the art making of a collective understanding.

GK: What is your studio situation at VSC as well as in Athens?

AA: My studio here at the VSC is bright, spacious (400 m²), and comfortable. It is situated in the historic building of Barbara White, which in itself is poetic, while beautifully shaped with a lot of character.

The artist's working area at the Vermont Studio Center, 2009

It houses the Studio Center printshop and darkrooms. Both my windows overlook at a leaf-spattered lawn leading down to the Gihon River; across, I see the Schultz sculpture studios and metal-shop. It feels very relaxing resting my eyes and looking out my window and meditating on whatever happens to fill my mind at the time. Indoors, there is a lively yet respectful communal atmosphere. I relish the experience of listening to the music on my iPod while working, creating a rhythm and flow which sustains my work throughout the night without noticing.

At the Vermont Studio Center

As for Athens, my working space is a flat, housing both a living and studio area. It is 85m² —big, bright, and quiet. I moved in three years ago and fell in love with it. I feel very lucky to be able to rent in a suburban area at an affordable price.

The artist's outdoor working area at his Athens studio

There is a semi-open air room, which serves as a storage area. For the winter months, I use a small room as a studio; the rest is my living space. The best part is the patio and the garden, where I have a small-scale organic farm. I grow watermelons, eggplants, peppers, beans, melons, tomatoes, flowers, herbs, and ladybugs! Predators feed on aphids and keep the garden free of pests. It’s a joy!

I usually enjoy working outdoors and melt large batches of encaustic medium. Wax’s scent attracts tons of bees partying on wax blocks and nibbling at my paintings! In addition, I get studio visits from hedgehogs, turtles, birds, cats, and lots of snails, especially on rainy days.

There is a family living above my apartment with a child who plays the piano very well and visits my studio often to critique my work. His critiques are the best and most insightful reviews I have ever gotten. Just across from my studio, there is a public park where I go to take a break and stretch my neck with Frida, my Athenian mutt!

GK: The word on the street is that a solo show is in the works. Why don’t you tell me a bit about your upcoming shows?

AA: My last show was about four years ago. Since then, I took the time to develop a consistent body of large-scale encaustic works, part of which will be exhibited in March at my solo show in Thessaloniki, Greece. The show will be split between two galleries: Zina Athanassiadou Gallery in Thessaloniki and the AAA (Athanassiadou Art Advice) space in Athens. The galleries will have their openings a week apart. A catalogue will be published, which will include both paintings and drawings from the exhibitions. Numerous detailed images of these large scale works will also make the catalogue, because I find it essential to include them; these parts of a whole stand great on their own, too. By isolating inner compositions, the imagery takes on a different, individual meaning. The working title of the show is Phantasmagoria. You’re all invited!

Alexis Avlamis, a happy resident at the Vermont Studio Center

And that’s a wrap!

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.

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.”

Marisa Olson, "Black or White," 2006. Video still, TRT 4:13. Courtesy the Artist.

In preparation for Whew Age, Olson has read extensively about holistic relaxation techniques and therapies, the early development of science as a discipline, and, coincidentally, studies that link human diets to Earth’s rising temperature. The latter was key to the NYCFCS held at New York University. In a session about hunger in local communities, a City Harvest representative suggested that if we (manufacturers and consumers) can shift the focus from trade and industry back to people and their well-being we can help our climate tremendously. This fundamental shift is at the heart of Whew Age — reframing the individual’s relationship to the environment.

As Olson continued to describe Whew Age, I thought back to Zeller in Times Square. Was Olson assuming her audience would be more informed than the average Joe about climate issues? “No, but that’s a good question,” she said. “What I’m assuming is that there is a massive general awareness of the fact that there’s a problem. And, yes, there are skeptics about that. But I think most people have been subject to green advertising campaigns. [My] undergrads are obsessed with this idea of ‘going green,’ but when I ask them what that means they don’t know.“ Not unlike organic food today, Olson suggests that what was once alternative thinking to better ourselves and our planet has become mainstream fashion (read, brand) rather than a genuine tactic for change. The artist says, “Everyone knows that we need to be worried, but there aren’t really proactive strategies … I have a lot of criticisms of the discourse of environmentalism and the way it gets framed. So much of it is about consumption…It’s just one product versus another.”

Marisa Olson, "Noise Pollution," 2009. Courtesy the artist and Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.

In 2007, Olson began to explore media consumption and discard in relationship to the environment with her performance video, Golden Oldies. In this piece, she tries to create dialogue between obsolete, or analog devices such as a CD boombox, child’s record player, VHS and cassette tapes. Olson writes, “Like the garbage that piles up as we upgrade our phones and computers, the detritus accumulated in these efforts gets blindly swept aside in this ultimately fruitless effort.” In her ongoing-project, Noise Pollution, she continues this investigation of “upgrade culture,” collecting discarded communication devices from the streets of her Brooklyn neighborhood. “I’m really interested in what people do with their iPod, boom box or old answering machine when they upgrade to new technologies, and [how] that garbage becomes kind of out of sight and out of mind,” says Olson. Using the metaphor of Fort Knox — taking something out of circulation to preserve its value — the artist sprays her finds with gold paint, and displays them in “junk heaps.” The piles are a way, she says, to think about commodity fetishism, or “cultural forces that compel us to make and buy new media, and what fall out that has for the environment.”

Marisa Olson, "Noise Pollution" installation, 2009. Courtesy the artist and Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.

This tension between nostalgia for the old, or familiar, and desire for the new was, for me, the most intriguing point made in the artist talk at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where DJ Spooky (aka Paul Miller), Art21 artist Julie Mehretu, and ecological designer Mitchell Joachim discussed their divergent practices in relationship to climate change. In response to Joachim’s images of inflatable cars, portable wind-powered homes, and other far-out designs for a not-so-distant future, Mehretu suggested that human resistance to change might be one of the biggest challenges for our environment: How does one make sustainable designs and technologies so desirable that people see them as essentially as we have come to view iPods? How do you make people want to change from their private Hummer to the Zipcar model? Consumption in this context would seem a solution rather than a problem. I shared this with Olson and she responded, “Somehow, I feel like that’s just about people buying more cars and things and not really addressing the bigger issue…but [yet] it is! That’s the really paradoxical thing. This is about consumption. It is about the carbon footprint of producing these objects, and then the consumer demand for new objects. I guess that’s why I’m really pushing this idea of mindfulness in the meditation project [Whew Age]. I really want people to be aware of the big picture.”

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.

MMH: It seems to me that contemporary art is one of the least effective ways to be an activist or to change the world. What role do you see your students having both within the art world and in society?

CPH: My father, a corporate lawyer, started an environmental law firm, which has grown to be EarthJustice. He would say we need all forms of engagement. He practiced in his own manner to save the earth, but he was grateful for all kinds of expression. I think you can’t measure varying degrees of effectiveness. My father has saved more land than I ever will, but my work might be the thing that speaks to the next Al Gore, who then makes the next Nobel Prize winning gesture. You just don’t know. I think contemporary art is a conversation that sometimes leaks out to the larger world. We have created a program which redefines contemporary art as being sited IN the larger world. My spring studio course consists of three client-based projects. We will work with the Albuquerque Metropolitan Flood Control Agency, with a local agency promoting walkability to fight obesity and with the Bosque Environmental Monitoring Program, working with bats in the Bosque. Students will be making work collaboratively with these organizations, some of which will be installed on site.

MMH:
 We seemed to have reached a point where basic environmental concerns are on the minds of every American. What role do you see for ecological art in the future and what are some directions that artists should address?

CH: Food and water. Climate change. The basics are a good place to start. If our program is a good bellwether, I think in the future, ecological art will become part of our common vocabulary. We seek to train people who will be effective interdisciplinary artists, working in teams and able to contribute to all kinds of public and private processes. We seek an expanded role, beyond the confines of galleries or art publications. The Sandoval County Flood Control Agency, here in New Mexico, hired two artists to help them with their next several large flood control projects. I am inspired by the example of Mary Miss and her proposals for water treatment and exposing infrastructure. This can be a tremendous sea change for contemporary art and for the role of the artist.