The lines in the heading are a quote from an amazingly heartfelt poem Requiem for a Rainforest by celebrated Malaysian poet/lawyer, Cecil Rajendra. Cecil read it during the keynote presentations at the first Culture |Futures Symposium at the UN Climate summit, Cop15.

I went up to him later to thank him for this poem and his reading and he was delighted to hear about Ireland – he’s been here in the past and was so taken back by the respect shown to poets in Ireland. Mind you, I think if Ireland really did respect poetry more it wouldn’t have got so caught up in the Celtic tiger’s uncontrolled building / banking crisis. Cecil’s ‘If Politicians were Trees’ (oh what a bonus it would be, if we, their constituents could hack them down each time they became a nuisance – if only politicians were trees!), ‘On Not Being Able to Write a Poem Celebrating the Erection of Another Multi-storyed Complex’ should be on the school poetry reading lists around the world, don’t you think. He later gave another short reading and I feel so lucky to have 2 of his books now Rags & Ragas and Dove on Fire: poems on peace, justice and ecology, as I often find good ecological poetry, particularly on forests, so hard to come by.

He has also read some beautiful rhymes he had created for his daughter, and which the child in all of us enjoyed. They are based on old nursery rhymes- instead of ‘London Bridge is falling down‘ he created ‘ All the trees are falling down, falling down…’., instead of Jack and Jill going up the hill, to get some water, his lines were ‘when they got to the hill ‘they found it bare and stripped of all vegetation… the last line was deliciously funny too ‘with no protection, from the sun’s radiation, Jack contracted skin cancer and Jill followed soon after’.

On reflecting on all that was not achieved for so many poor and vulnerable nations at Cop15, it was heartening to think afterwards how valuable Cecil’s voice has been in offering an alternative vision amongst the unrelenting social, justice and ecological crisis in his homeland. His poetry is universal too, as to a greater and lesser extent, the same crisis are happening throughout the world. And I was reminded too, of the power of art to prick and irritate the consciousness of those in power. I later discovered that when his poem Requiem for a Rainforest was published in the early 1990s, his passport was impounded due to his ‘anti-logging’ stance but after an international campaign it was later returned to him.

Cecil ’s works have been published widely by WWF, UNESCO, Oxfam, Unicef, BBC, National Geographic and he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. As a London trained lawyer he returned to his homeland and started Malaysia’s first rural legal aid centre for farmers, fishermen and factory workers.

He also read this work: No Celebratory Song… I’ve quoted a few lines below from this poem, they resonate with how I, and I expect many of us feel at the moment, if we understand what wasn’t achieved in Copenhagen.

‘I shall sing no celebratory song

so long
as our rivers and streams
our oceans and trees
our birds, our fish
our butterflies and bees
are strangled, stifled
polluted, poisoned
crushed, condemned…
by lop-sided development’

Thank you Cecil and I hope Poetry Ireland will invite him back soon!

FarmLab is a creative garden space and workshop for the sustainability-inclined. In front of the warehouse space is a corn field project entitled “Not A Corn Field.” The title, and perhaps the project itself, is derived from the traditional slang for the swath of land next to the train tracks– The Corn Field. You turn around to see large water-catchment barrels with images of birds and the molecular symbol for water. Old beaters sit outside the warehouse, collecting rust, but also blooming flowers.

The warehouse itself is a mish-mosh of offices, artist spaces and meeting places. In the back, you can find a garden complete with a hydroponic setup for strawberries, waterfalls, couches, and chicken trailers.

Each Friday, they hold a salon– the Metabolic Studio Public Salon, to be exact– and invite a guest speaker to lecture as the participants munch on a light lunch provided. At the last salon, the guest speaker was Nance Klehm, a composter-extraordinaire. The salon was entitled, “Everything Comes Into This World Hungry.” Klehm’s talk vacillated between poetic descriptions of our place in the world of soil, powerpoint videos of composting-in-action, and anecdotes describing her work in land remediation.

One video showed several interns helping to squash some delicata squash destined for the compost. There were too many to chop, so they all decided to run them over with a car (which I thought was ’so L.A.’).

An image of the remediation project in Wendover, UT showed a couple participants dousing urine onto carbonaceous material. Nance said that in just 8 months, this pee plus carbon concoction became soil.

Klehm’s “Humble Pile” project was also quite interesting. She invited people to poop in buckets– adding sawdust along the way– in order to contribute to human manure composting. She received 1500 gallons of this mixture, collecting it in large, lidded bins. The raw material (what Klehm called “donations”) was dumped into a composting container made with tarps and cinder blocks.

An image of this “humble pile” revealed a wide array of colors, one of which Nance called ochre as she commented on this diverse excremental palette. “What are people eating?!,” she exclaimed.

Here’s one last Nance Klehm tidbit: when urine evaporates, it leaves saltpeter, a main ingredient in gunpowder. You can make gunpowder with pee!

At the end of her lecture, Nance unveiled a compost toilet (just for pee) that the interns had built, and asked all of the guests to make a ‘donation’ to the potty.

The food provided at the Salon was made by the interns. They made the bread by hand, topped it with two different spreads, and served it with a yummy coconut curry soup. Many elements of the meal came right from the garden outside. I spoke with an intern, Keondra, as she helped spread the bread. Keondra been working with FarmLab for 2 and a half months and was assigned the internship through a youth career program. “Everything here is new to me,” she said, “the goats, the chickens…[learning] different ways to grow stuff for the urban environment.” Keondra feels that FarmLab gives her hope, because they are “thinking of future survival– of stuff going wrong” and the experiments conducted there can help with that future.

Another FarmLab participant, Jaime Lopez Wolters, began his work with the organization in 2005, when Not A Corn Field was just getting started. Jaime worked with corn farmers in Guatemala prior to coming to L.A., and used this past experience to manage the hand-sown acre of Not Cornfield. He now aids FarmLab in their various current projects, including an aquaponic strawberry field at the Los Angeles V.A. in the shape of an American flag.

I asked Jaime, “Why art plus ecology? What do these two things have to do with each other?”
“Under the guise of art,” he said, “you can get a lot more done.”

People are much more willing to allow an art installation, which may be considered temporary (and will be pleasing to the eye), than, say, a permanent garden. Hence the name “Metabolic Studio,” Jaime said, “It’s always changing.”

I’m heading off to Copenhagen today – I am excited but also have mixed feelings as I see Copenhagen as only a beginning of serious debate and awareness about Climate Change. I was reading the editorial in the Guardian this morning, who sums it up better than I and the disapointing distraction that has arisen about climate science in the last week. Personally I think the world has left it too late to make the changes it needs to head off climate chaos, and for the many in the world already affected. But I’m going aware also of the excitement growing in the groundswell of global activities from ordinary citizens from all over the world. Over the last year, I’ve been watching the efforts of vast online networks of grassroots activities and the hope that many have.  This huge build up of attention, perhaps a little too late has even made Obama reconsider  his travel plans to take part in the important final days of the Copenhagen summit. It will be a historic summit if only for the fact that warnings from science have engaged so many but so much more is needed.

I’m going to attend the cultural side of Copenhagen summit - the first international symposium focussed on thinking of policy ideas to provide a framework to increase cultural engagement with ecological issues, see www.culturefutures.org (follow on Facebook, twitter if you are interested, the programme is also there). Many have questioned why the cultural sector has been slow to connect with such issues. I know I have been always been very surprised how few in fine art circles until very recently have engaged with these concerns. Is it a major fault in our cultural education institutions or perhaps as leading eco artist Agnes Denes has said, it’s more the the dangerous result that dividing our knowledge into specialist areas has created.  I know for instance that having worked in science has been  important in my art as  it allowed me to engage with ecological issues so much more confidently. However,  I think it can be also too easy to overlook all the online cultural activity that has helped engage thousands in grass roots climate change initiatives. Bill McKibben, initiator of the global climate change 350 movement was always very aware of the role of cultural producers, or as the Danish are calling us ‘cultural agents’, see one of his early 350 articles http://www.grist.org/article/mckibben-imagine/. McKibben’s own writing has been hugely influential; I recently picked up a copy of Walden and McKibben’s introduction was probably the best thing I’ve read in ages. Rob Hopkins, an former artist and founder of the hugely influential TransitionTowns movement, is also very aware that cultural reponses are part of how society will engage and imagine a new future. Actually, I think the Transition movement is a case study in point for the Culture Futures programme – I will be reporting back.

There were a few things that inspired me over the last week, I saw the movie Home at FutureProofKilkenny Green Screen film series programme (Kilkenny, Ireland’s Transition Group), art again. I had seen clips of Home on youtube and I thought it might be just stunning images  (as I had known of Yann Bertrand’s work previously, he has in the past taken amazing still images of the world, all from the air) set to a nice orchestral score but it was breathtaking in its scope and perspective about how our very recent industrial age has in just 150 years created so much devastation leading to climate chaos. Sitting in an audience in Ireland with the worst floods in living memory affecting so many in the last few weeks and more predicted, it was hard not to feel that Ireland is facing up to the fact it is now part of this story too. It is a long film but I haven’t seen a film that encompasses such a world view at one time – note, I like slow films and if you don’t check out the equally excellent, Age of Stupid. Best of all I thought, was that I was sitting next to an Art manager and she instantly bought a copy. Why isn’t this film on TV, all the time??

Here’s a link to home and to some dance . Along with film-making, it’s another thing I do too rarely these days.

PS my Martin is organising the as yet only 350 vigil for climate change in the republic of Ireland on the top of Mt Leinster on Sat 12 Dec. All are welcome but bring that wet weather gear! Click here for more details http://www.350.org/node/12982

I was really delighted to hear this week, the winners of the 1minutetosavetheworld Climate Change Film competition and congratulations to all the organisers behind the scenes – the works are now spreading across the internet. I had only entered in the last week so didn’t expect to be placed but more importantly it gave me a very good excuse to make a new piece of work for Copenhagen, which I had been putting on the long finger. Thanks all for writing in and rating my bird film so highly – I was really touched.

The competition had been going since early 2009 so in the end I think 170 films were submitted from around the world. Why I’m really delighted is my favourite was also the judges favourite – My Paper Boat made by Indian film-maker, Arun Bose. In fact, I had written a couple of times to Arun over the last weeks of the competition, saying how fitting I thought his piece might be for Copenhagen- it has no dialogue. ‘Your film, particularly as it conveys its message without words and incorporates the people and lands who will be most affected in such an imaginative, poetic way is really great and I think it’s a great strategy for the international audience who will not have to have the work translated. I think myself that slow, poetic means can be a rather subversive act in these days of so much images and noise’.

Anyway, it was brilliant that the judges also agreed so here it is for you to enjoy.

I’ve also added the runner-up, which was my Martin’s favourite, Bear in Mind and I expect it’s a favourite with many others. Then, there is the Talking Cat video - Cat’s Against Climate Change- I couldn’t for the life of me understand why it was short-listed but apparently it was being viewed as a good example of a viral video. I’ve since found out that  it has already been viewed by 108,756 viewers on YouTube!! Silly me, I had forgotten, when I first started looking at YouTube, how it is littered with funny cat video’s – so the maker cleverly played on this strategy to engage internet audience on climate change and I have to agree, it is a very nice looking cat. There are other winners, do see the 1minutetosavetheworld site and do share your favourites along your networks before the Climate summit.

Anyway, I hope to see some of these films in Copenhagen, as I now find myself in the very fortunate position of being able to attend an international 3 day Art and Ecology policy symposium Cultures/Futures*, held during the climate talks. Culture, as well as politics, will be important in bringing about awareness of climate change issues across the world. I will be reporting back in between snacking on Danish pastries and looking as much art as I can.

* Culture | Futures: The aim of the is to address the strategic role of culture in delivering an Ecological Age. This will be explored through engaging with new ideas and concepts; sharing lessons learned, best practices and policies; and exploring visions for innovative collaborations, action research and development.

Culture|Futures will provide the global platform for communication and dialogue between cultural actors. It will also encourage cooperation between leading cities on ways to develop comprehensive cultural actions as our world population becomes increasingly more and more urbanized. Finally, Culture|Futures will engender a collaboration between research centres and networks supporting the creation of an evidence base of best practice to support the work of cultural practitioners.

Happy  Thanksgiving!

I have included a bit of the “local color” where I am this Thanksgiving.

These images I will have as well as other pastels from my website (http://www.rlistudios.com) at the Burke Arts Council (BAC) Holiday Sale, beginning

Thursday, December 3 – Opening Reception 5:00 – 7:00 pm -115 East Meeting Street, Morganton, NC, Jailhouse Gallery

Thereafter,  a 20% commission will go to  the The Burke Arts Council. Tell all your friends and give handmade and artisan gifts this Christmas.

Sale runs Dec. 4-19th!

I will have art pieces like these two starting at $25 each and more framed pieces from my facebook, blog and website.

Saturday, December 19 – Sale ends 1:00 pm

If you are interested  in any art not in the holiday sale you can reach me via my website: rlistudios.com using the contact us tab.

www.rlistudios.com

Art posted above are “daily paintings” and are not meant to be a long exercise; however, they make good “holiday” gifts to give friends.

Additional artwork can be viewed on my carousel via HyLit radio.com- Ways to Advertise on this blog-click here

Below is a music montage of my eco art. Click on mini purple marsh painting icon below to view!

Please feel free to share video with your friends. Comments are welcome.

ECO Art of the Carolinas

More landscape images can be found on my website: www.rlistudios.com

ECO ART OF THE CAROLINAS THEME born out of inspiration…..

surfaced with my belief in preserving the beauty and health of the environment- the land. My appreciation of the natural beauty in nature was born in my youth when I admired the mists rising off of the Appalachians and the Blue Ridge and grew from my travels.  I am drawn to paint various landscapes, marshscapes, seascapes often of wild lands and often including water imagery.  My primary subject matter interest began with the ecosystems that represent change between the land and sea, including marsh environments and mangrove forests.  I hope via my website to promote awareness of the dynamics that thrive in these fragile ecosystems.

There is a growing list of cultural activities planned for the Copenhagen Climate Change summit in December, not so much in Ireland but more in the UK and Europe. See the RSA Arts for COP15 site for more info – you can join this site if you are creating work/exhibitions or just interested.

Probably the most visually striking  and poignant work would have to be Angela Palmer’s Ghost Forest that appeared in London’s Trafalgar Square today and which will later be moved to  form a centrepiece exhibit during the Copenhagen Climate Summit. It’s stunning to think that an artwork is being used and inserted into the heart of a capital – often, it’s hard to judge how effective art can be in effecting change but this work is already hitting newspapers and the internet sites around the world.

Ghost Forest by Angela Palmer

Like all art, Ghost Forest can be appreciated or interpreted in many ways and on many levels – no response is right or wrong. Many observers will see the stumps as beautiful sculptural objects; others will perhaps see the installation as a scene of devastation – perhaps evoking Paul Nash’s rendering of the stark landscape of the First World War where only the splintered tree stumps remain in the devastated land. Others may see the tree stumps posited in the no-man’s land between the past and the future – the past representing the life and growth of these trees, their potential, and what they provided biologically for the planet; while the future may signal, for some, an imperilled world, as the consequences of deforestation continues apace – another ‘New World’. For others the installation may represent an overt piece of political activism – a call to arms. I am equally comfortable with all responses. Many thinkers maintain that all art is political; politics touches all aspects of our lives. Life is about politics. And art is about communication, often transmitting unpalatable truths. As one artist commented: ‘I don’t think artists can avoid being political. Artists are the proverbial canaries in the coal mine. When we stop singing, it’s a sure sign of repressive times ahead – Angela Palmer

 

I won’t be seeing Ghost Forest in Trafalgar but in Copenhagen!!!! I’ve decided to attend the Culture/Futures 3 day symposium of Art/Ecology and Policy from now to 2050. Though I thought at the beginning of the year I would love to be a witness to the Climate Change Summit, I didn’t think I had a good reason to travel. Never thought there would be a an indepth discussion on art and ecology so I am glad to be going to take part. Will be reporting back, so.

Thanks to all who wrote in and saw my film; it didn’t get short-listed but it brought me a lot of comments and ideas for future endeavours. It never really had a chance as its so hard to compete with films made or featuring children or cats? see the short list here. However, it seems they will be showing some films that didn’t make the short-list, so I’ll let you know if I see it on a street corner in Copenhagen.

‘I have been aware of the sea as an enclosing presence, both sheltering and dangerous. But most important, I have noticed that the atoll (Suwarrow) belongs to the organic world; it is a living island’

RD Frisbie, ‘Island of Desire – the story of a South Seas Trader, 1944

Readers,

I have been overwhlemed by the response to my new film ‘once i counted birds’ for the UK Guardian’s 1minutetosavetheworld Climate Change Film Festival. Thank you all so very much for the great comments and emails. Here is some background to the film and this special place.

Below is a drawing I made from my art notebook that I took with me  on the trip in 2000. You can see that the atoll is literally made up of islets of coral, ever growing upwards, to literally form a great ‘circle in the sea’.

We visited and counted the birds on all the islets;  Suwarrow is an atoll in the Northern Group of the Cook Islands, about 800km NW of Rarotonga (the Cook Islands are in the middle of the south pacific, not that far from the equator, look above NZ on the map). The atoll is approx. 80 km in circumference,and 10km across (we took a small inflatable dinghy, which I nick-named ‘the Dawn Treader’ (after my love of the Narnia books) to carry out the survey work, on the yacht we hitched a lift on). We rarely crossed the lagoon however, after many warnings about seas suddenly becoming high and dangerous, not to mention its healthy shark population). In the drawing, you can see us crossing the lagoon, but in a much larger dinghy that a passing yacthing couple took us on. You can also see how we sailed up and around to get to Anchorage isle, our homebase isle for the trip).

This trip all came about because my New Zealand friend Rhys, a scientist who I had worked alongside at the agricultural research institute in the 1990’s, told me lots over the years about this unique atoll. Rhys had first become fascinated with Suwarrow after reading about the modern day NZ Robinson Crusoe, Tom Neale, who stayed alone on this unpeopled but bird/wildlife rich atoll for many years (An Island to Oneself, Tom Neale, 1966) but we never realised that one day that we would both visit and catalogue its bird population.

Here Rhys describes the rich history of the place in an article after our visit, that he wrote for the NZ Forest and Bird Journal, in 2001.

‘Described by Robert Louis Stevenson’s wife as ‘the most romantic island in the world,’ the motu (islets) that make up Suwarrow are small but have a history rich beyond their size. From ghosts of Spanish soldiers, through murder and mayhem, to a hide-out for German raiders during WWI, Suwarrow has for centuries provided the stuff of romance and an idyllic breeding ground for seabirds and turtles.  However, these days (in 2000) all is not well in this tropical paradise and a battle is looming…’    At that time neither Rhys and I were thinking of global warming and rising sea levels (though I did notice pamphlets in the local telecom office about it but it wasn’t on my radar, coming as I did from a country which is not under the same threat as pacific nations). Instead our survey was conducted against the very real threat at that time, that Suwarrow’s rich wildlife, including rare species, was going to be severly disturbed by commercial pearl farming in the lagoon.

We did the bird survey in 2000,  a repeat of a similar study that had been done 5 years previously; basically to highlight the rich and unique migratory seabird populations, that breed so successfully in Suwarrow since they are little disturbed by human interference.

Rhys later published our bird survey findings ‘The status of seabird colonies on the Cook Islands atoll of Suwarrow, R. Jones, Bird Conservation Int. (2001) 11:309-338 and I produced a very rough, 10 min un-narrated film that was later screened on Cook Island TV. Some years later, thankfully, and after much work by local activists, Suwarrow atoll was the statue of a Cook Island National Park.

The birds you see in my new film are ghost/fairy terns, brown boobies, red footed boobies, frigate birds, the long sea distance travelling red tail tropic bird and the rare and enormous Masked Booby (in fact we thought no Masked Boobies were breeding on the atoll. It wasn’t until the last week, just as we were finishing counting on one the motu, that we looked across and saw a large white object on the last motu left to study. More rubbish we thought, maybe it’s a large lump of polystyrene? Unfortunately a vast amount of rubbish drifts across the pacific and gets swept across the atoll in the hurricane seasons. Yet in fact, on coming closer, we discovered it was a pair of Masked Boobies and their chick -the chick was about 3 ft high!!. These enormous birds, with a huge wingspan had the motu to themselves and needed a good long runway of a beach just to takeoff – the parents were incredible fliers to watch. It was a thrill to discover them on our last counting day (we had been there for almost 2 months at that stage -  and we were getting a bit tired of the last remaining dried food we had brought with us in the four barrels of supplies we had).

I’ll just finish by saying what are my strongest memories of the visit were:

how small and unremarkable the islets looked, until you turned a corner and saw thousands of terns and frigate birds nesting (I had a the job of counting the ‘big’ birds, Rhys took the larger job of counting the smaller ones, it was working out perfectly until one day we found a motu covered with thousands of frigates, Rhys laughed for ages); coming right up to birds and having the amazing experience of being with animals that had no fear of humans; the constant scream of the terns crying ‘wideawake’; seeing all the wonderful sealife, turtles, parrot and puffer fish and some other, unidentified enormous fish-thing? that scared me  and Rhys right out of the water, still not sure what it was; always looking over my shoulder to check the junior sharks that hung around the edge of the lagoon weren’t coming up too close behind me; being so near the equator with the full moon so bright that it seemed we were in a black and white movie; seeing on the night of full moon, the sun set on one side of the lagoon and a few minutes later the moon rising; remembering the heat and humidity that killed any enthusiam of doing anything energetic in the middle of the day, like bird counting; going to bed at night, uneasily hearing the roar of the ocean against the reef, knowing full well that hurricanes, when they do strike can bring the ocean right over the islets as happened to the author Robert Frisbee and his children in the 1940’s – they survived as he tied his children to trees so they wouldn’t be swept away; eating my lunch and watching the numerous species of crabs crawl along about their business; trying not to think about how we were going to get off the island after our very lucky escape on our yacht voyage to Suwarrow – our yacht was hit by a freak wave and 50knot winds!! Our captain wrote later it was one of the worst passages he ever had – ’sitting, sleeping, and living in the salty, spongey, rolling wetness – it sucked. But being new to sailling, Rhys and Cathy were superstars (they literally strapped me in so I wouldn’t get knocked about – don’t think I spoke much for 3 days after), and had the optimistic “at least we’re not dead attitude of veteran sailors’; and remembering on the last night, looking up at our wonderful Southern Cross, and the crabs in a line coming down to the beach and promising one day, to return again…

Notes:

Probably one of the most lyrical writers of this area and communities little touched by modern life was US born Robert Dean Frisbie but his books are rare and hard to find. The South Pacific has always attracted artists, writers and other searchers; I happened across a fantastically illustrated book recently on my last visit to NZ, ‘In Search of Paradise – artists and writers in the colonial south pacific’ by Graeme Lay, Godwit, 2008. You’ll find Frisbee, RL Stevenson, Gauguin and other well and lesser known artists, illustrators and writers who came to the South Pacific and NZ. A big retrospective of Gauguin work is coming to the Tate in London next year too (30 Sept 2010  –  16 Jan 2011).

___________________________

You can still vote for the film before 5pm on 6 Nov here (roll over the yellow stars below the film to vote). Please leave a comment if you like it too.

You can share it with your facebook friends here, and on twitter here

photo courtesty of www.350.org

Great to see my fellow Kiwis up and about so early – see www.350.org for the biggest international effort to wake up the world to the need to push for strong policy action ahead of the UN Copenhagen Climate talks in Dec. Huge amount of creative ideas by people’s across the globe now – are you involved?

I love this one by OxfamNZ, I’ve been thinking a lot about the south pacific recently – I was once fortunate to visit the Cook islands, one of the many, many island nations under threat of rising sea levels

Do you look at posters when you are in a new place? I do and I happened across this great poster in Ljubljana recently. Don’t you agree that the strongest message can sometimes be said with the simplest of materials.

I wasn’t surprised at all that this poster by Gaja Mežnarič Osole of Slovenia, gained a distinctive merit award. Ljubljana hosted an innovative 1st european youth poster competition on climate change earlier this year and many of the posters created  striking messages, often more effective than long-winded political or scientific explanations. The aim was to show that ‘the future depends on our common awareness’ and what better way to spread ideas with inexpensive posters across our cities. See more great posters here

Today is also  global bloggers day for the international Climate change 350 initiative. I’m joining over 30,000 bloggers who are trying to draw attention to the grassroots 350 ppm CO2 campaign (the safe level of CO2 that we need to return to, to avoid climate chaos) in order to raise public awareness on the need for tough climate change policy ahead of the December Copenhagen summit on Climate Change.

On October 24, join people all over the world
to take a stand for a safe climate future, see www.350.org

There are a load of initiatives all over the world and not just with the 350  campaign and many are attracting efforts from creative people. My felt artist friend Nicola is joining an International Felt climate change initiative and I’ve made a small goal to make a new work in responses to the new RSA  art and ecology artists network call for works that address or reflect this issue. I was agreeing with another musician friend the other day that there isn’t a better antidote to all this doom and gloom than the buzz of creating something new and I always find I need a deadline to create…  You might like to look or join the new RSA artists Art & Ecology network to see more activity in this area (you can see I made a page for Irish artists, there must be more of you out there). Will Shaw’s blog for the RSA Arts & Ecology programme is also an excellent in-depth current overview of the debates circling art, ecology, politics & society; I’ve signed up for his email blog posts and also you might like to view/join the arts and ecology group on the rapidly growing transitiontownireland site.

PS the 350 campaign video for those who haven’t seen it, it’s a bit like the Obama campaign for the earth, will it make a difference?

Concerning my recent post of  ”Pink Light,” (a class demo) I have taken it a step further. We consider it to be almost there, but not quite there yet. I returned to the page this weekend after browsing thru a beautiful magazine about Kiawah I received in the mail. It was a weekend filled with the Julia & Julia movie, Chinese and Sushi, a yard sale, and the return of the little art ritual below.

Here it is:

Image is 9″x12″ Pink Light- in progress

This image is not yet finished and needs a better title, perhaps?

If you are interested  in this you can reach me via my website: rlistudios.com

www.rlistudios.com

Comments Welcome. This is a “daily painting” and not meant to be a long exercise.

Additional artwork can be viewed on my carousel via HyLit radio.com- Ways to Advertise on this blog-click here

Below is a music montage of my eco art. Click on mini purple marsh painting icon below to view!

Please feel free to share video with your friends. Comments are welcome.

ECO Art of the Carolinas

More landscape images can be found on my website: www.rlistudios.com

ECO ART OF THE CAROLINAS THEME born out of inspiration…..

surfaced with my belief in preserving the beauty and health of the environment- the land. My appreciation of the natural beauty in nature was born in my youth when I admired the mists rising off of the Appalachians and the Blue Ridge and grew from my travels.  I am drawn to paint various landscapes, marshscapes, seascapes often of wild lands and often including water imagery.  My primary subject matter interest began with the ecosystems that represent change between the land and sea, including marsh environments and mangrove forests.  I hope via my website to promote awareness of the dynamics that thrive in these fragile ecosystems.

About a year ago I posted “daily paintings”- which were small exercises such as the one above; however, life got in the way and I had to take on multiple roles and fit alot more into my day and this ritual about ended for me. I hope to return to the page more these days.

Some of you may have seen this notice already. I hope to dash out from the arts office to listen in!

BUTLER GALLERY Kilkenny LUNCHTIME TALK – ART AND ECOLOGY
Pisces #25 Chromogenic print 2003, Susan Unterberg

“And for this Nature is Never Spent: Art and Environmental Reform”

Lecture given by Dr. Jo Anna Isaak, John L. Marion Chair in Art History, Fordham University, New York

Tuesday September 8, 2009, (1- 2pm)
The Parade Tower, Kilkenny Castle
FREE – Booking Essential

In this once-off Butler Gallery lunchtime talk, Professor Jo Anna Isaak traces modern art’s sustained connection with nature and its subsequent role in environmental reform. She presents the work of a number of contemporary artists working in a variety of non traditional media, who are engaged in what she terms “the greening of the avant-garde” — employing their talents in the service of environmental awareness, providing innovative approaches and models of participatory engagement, designing solutions to environmental problems and broadening public concern for what is becoming the most pressing issue of our time– environmental degradation. She suggests that one of the most radical of modernism’s avant-garde gestures may be in art’s reintegration into the praxis of life, and the realization that art may be necessary for our successful stewardship of the environment.

The Butler Gallery are delighted to welcome Dr. Isaak to Kilkenny, who has very generously agreed to give this talk while in Ireland and continue the discussion on art, ecology and the environment, currently the focus of Moot – Kilkenny Arts Office and Butler Gallery’s series of discussions.

Please contact the Butler Gallery for more information and to book a place by calling 056 7761106

Contact Tel.: 056 7761106
Email: reception@butlergallery.com
Website: http://www.butlergallery.com

Dispersal/Return: Land Arts of the American West 2000-2006

August 28th – December 20th, 2009
UNM Art Museum, Center for Fine Arts, Albuquerque

Claire Long and Anna Keleher invite you to join them on Friday September 25th, 5-7pm at the Center for Fine Arts (Popejoy Hall), University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque for the reception of  Dispersal/Return: Land Arts of the American West 2000-2006.

To visit the UNM Art Museum website click here.

“The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That’s what poetry does.” – Allen Ginsberg

I’ve been caught up lately doing too much work but in odd moments I slip the words ‘art and ecology’ into search engines for other art forms to get a bit inspired. I know, it’s pretty sad.

I barely know why I write a blog as I find writing a bit of a struggle, too many ideas all trying to come out at once means that I spend half my time going back over my sentences trying to sort them into some sort of order but in some odd way its a huge relief to clear the ideas that take up space.  I sometimes find myself curious about poetry; it intrigues me how do people manage to convey so much, often so visually and creatively.

Here is a piece I found, I wasn’t sure what I was listening to at first but hope you enjoy Janet as much as I did.

By the way, do let me know about other ecopoets, Alice Oswald is a favorite of mine but there must be more.

I had a dream the other night
I walked out of the city
to a forest
and there were neatly paved bicycle paths
and trash cans every fifty feet
and trash every ten

Below is a marsh unfinished  and it is a “demo” I did while hosting a Wednesday night pastel class at the Burke Arts Council.

Image is 9″x12″ entitled “Pink Light”

If you are interested  in this you can reach me via my website: rlistudios.com

www.rlistudios.com

Sennelier pastels on Art Spectrum colorfix paper

Additional artwork can be viewed on my carousel via HyLit radio.com- Ways to Advertise on this blog-click here

Pastel Colors used: 

Sky- 2 shades of peach, one light and one medium value blended together; 2 shades of pink blended and close in value; 1 cool lavender and 1 soft sky blue. Rembrandt brand “light sky blue” is a good choice and can be used in tandem with other blues you end up collecting, or it can be used alone as I did here. 

Landmass- Nu Pastel brand “confederate blue” with bits of sky color dropped in at will. Choose paler and cooler shades of blue for the most distant trees. Drop in some of the sky colors in the land as you move into the midground. I have started using dark, cool greens and greeen-blue shades for the brush near the horizon line.  

To attend any Burke Arts Council pastel Summer Art Class held in the Jail House Gallery call 703.433.7282 to sign up or email admin@burkearts.org to join the next scheduled group. Weekly get together pastel sessions are after work from 6-8pm.  All skill levels are welcome. As artists, we share together a evening of fun and creativity. Bring your favorite vacation photograph to work from, pastel paper and a beginner set of chalk pastels. Fees: $30/member/$35 non-member

Below is a music montage of my eco art. Click on mini purple marsh painting icon below to view!

Please feel free to share video with your friends. Comments are welcome.

ECO Art of the Carolinas

More landscape images can be found on my website: www.rlistudios.com

ECO ART OF THE CAROLINAS THEME born out of inspiration…..

surfaced with my belief in preserving the beauty and health of the environment- the land. My appreciation of the natural beauty in nature was born in my youth when I admired the mists rising off of the Appalachians and the Blue Ridge and grew from my travels. I am drawn to paint various landscapes, marshscapes, seascapes often of wild lands and often including water imagery. My primary subject matter interest began with the ecosystems that represent change between the land and sea, including marsh environments and mangrove forests. I hope via my website to promote awareness of the dynamics that thrive in these fragile ecosystems.

RLISTUDIOS dedicated to showcasing ECO ART OF THE CAROLINAS, marshscapes and depictions of coastal estuaries, can be found in North Carolina Community Treasures (a 263 page compilation-resource guide aboutNorth Carolina places, the business people who live there, their products and their passions). This hardbound, coffee table book will guide you to some of the most inviting places across the state, from the warm Atlantic shores to the breathtaking Appalachian Mountains.For your copy click: http://treasuresof.com/BuyBook.aspx

How do I draw the feel of vanishing mist?

How do I draw the sound of bellowing cows?

How do I draw the smell of the morning?

I asked myself these questions while sitting under the vestibule of my tent, deep in the Valle Vidal Wilderness. Through an invitation from John Wenger, painter, explorer and Professor Ameritus at UNM, I was honored to join members of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance and Albuquerque Wildlife Federation for a weekend of volunteering and companionship in the beautiful and history-rich Valle Vidal. I was impressed by the sheer number of people who showed up to help and with the coordination of the event. Rocky Mountain Youth Corps youth were also onsite for a weekend of hiking and wilderness exploration. The mingling and cross-pollination of the various groups and communities from around New Mexico was wonderful to witness. The conviction, pride, knowledge, self-respect and commitment of the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps and other kids at the site gave me hope. I look forward to attending other volunteer events and collaborating with NMWA in the future.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I follow Al Gore on twitter (this is the web service where people can send short text-length messages across the web to anyone who wishes to subscribe). Their short messages (tweets) come into my gmail, so I was working away late last week when I noticed a message come in from Al. Al doesn’t tweet that regularly at all, so when he does its usually about something important. He was briefly thanking all those who helped get the first US climate bill through Congress end of last week!! I followed his link to find that he and many others had won a tightly contested battle. It is by no means a perfect piece of proposed legislation; a lot of concessions were made, evident as the document runs to 1200 pages and it still has to get through the Senate. However, its the first time that any legislation on this topic has ever made it this far and is been claimed as a historic turning point in the US.

So that was positive, I was thinking and good timing for the lead up to the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen this Dec when the world will be watching and hoping that all goverments will come together to formulate a new global policy to replace Kyoto. So many people are working tirelessly in this area in response to the almost total consensus (>99%) of peer reviewed scientists that human activities  are responsible for the planet’s rapid global warming,  although its still an issue much misunderstood in the popular media.

Also late last week,I started hearing reports that Michael Jackson had died. The global phenonemon that was Michael Jackson, his music and electric dance performances that touched so many of us over the decades, the tragic latter years of a man surrounded by disturbing controversy, meant he was always was part of our global consciousness. Yet with the media circus that surrounds this artist’s death I was reminded of his music and I looked and listened again. I looked for his ‘earthsong’ video on youtube – it was his biggest ever hit in the UK from his album, History, part 1, released in 1995, beating both U2 and a Beatle re-release to the No. 1 Xmas song of that year (strange or is it, it was largely ignored in the US?). I dimly remembered seeing the visuals of the video at the time. Described as a blues/ gospel work, operatic in scale and cost, it was so ambitious then and now staggering to see it now in the context of growing awareness of climate chaos.  Have a look at the video and then Jackson performing it live below.  Even though it seems over the top, it seems so ahead of its time now.

I’m always thinking how hard it is as an artist to make works about issues that can connect without preaching – I think Michael came a long way in acheiving it in earthsong. I was also looking recently at the new Oxfam ‘Blue in the Face‘ video campaign for the Copenhagen climate summit in December. It’s great they are organising such a campaign but I couldn’t help comparing how like a mobile-phone advert it was compared to the emotion displayed in  Jackson’s ‘Earthsong’(and isn’t it’s good to also see Jarvis Cocker come around to campaigning on this issue; remember he famously interrupted Earthsong when Jackson performed it live in the UK)

Earthsong 2005

Earthsong live in Munich 1996: The HIStory World Tour began on September 7, 1996, and finished on October 15, 1997. Jackson performed 82 concerts in 58 cities to over 4.5 million fans.

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ps

Was just about to post the above when I was saw a short piece in last weekend’s Sunday Times. I was startled to see that Jackson had revealed in the last few weeks before his death, admist a busy schedule of rehearsals for a comeback UK tour (which his brother tragically has since revealed he wasn’t well enough to do), that he was writing and composing new songs. He had excitedly rang  his long time friend Deepak Chopra, bestselling author of numerous spiritual books, that he was writing material as good a ‘Billy Jean’ and sent him this new demo tracks, under a lot security! So poignantly, his new songs were again addressing climate change… Deepak quotes some of the lines that Michael wrote…

‘the trees are our lungs,
the rivers our circulation,
the earth is our body’.

He also wished to work with Chopra on a new green hymn for the world.

The reclusive, chronically ill and tragic figure that was Michael Jackson in recent years was often referred to as ‘whacko Jacko’ in the popular media, who called him weird. Apparently Jackson often said to Deepak, ‘Why do they call me weird?’ Isn’t the world weird where we have climate chaos, global warming, extinction of species, war, terrosim, where there is genocide in places like Sudan, isn’t that weird?’

I wonder what will become of of his new ‘earthsong’ track that he sent to Deepak. There was no-one quite like Michael to connect with so much of our youth, and the youthful part in all of us. As I’ve been reading recently in Global Warming for Dummies, our youth can ‘add a real sense of urgency to climate talks by stressing that the future -climate change, which may seem abstract to policymakers, industry and the public – is very real for them…Youth bring to the table optimism and high energy… and a sense of moral obligation in their elders…and they see climate change with a sense of simplicity…without employing numbing jargon or invoking complex political issues’

… Deepak, the world probably needs Michael’s new ‘earthsong’ for this December!

Hi everyone

I have work  in two galleries at the moment; firstly my short film ‘burning bright‘ is been shown in a group show, the 9 stone group of Artists at the Norman Gallery in Wexford near where we live -Martin, Anthony, Nicola and other friends are also exhibiting. It opens tomorrow Sat 27 June at 5pm, continues daily 12-6pm until the 12 July. Sorry for the late notice but have been travelling recently. (Burning Bright was also shown at the new film program at Eigse in Carlow last week; I was away unfortunately but apparently a large audience turned up with Carlow’s own Hollywood star Saoirse Ronan, very exciting to hear such a strong audience for local films)

detail: Unwanted Genes (weeds) on a DNA Spiral, Cathy Fitzgerald 2003

Secondly, some work I made some years ago was selected for a new Children’s exhibtion Earth Explorers at the Ark in Temple Bar, in Dublin, Ireland. My DNA piece made from twigs and weed wildflowers and ‘red cells’ which I made from children’s ‘magic plastic’ are still proving popular and the science type exhibits such as mine were supported by the Exploration Station. You might have heard the adverts on RTE radio 1 – it’s a very well curated exhibition by Aishleigh Downey who previously worked at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Some of the exhibits are at child height, and all the works have a strong poetic sense to stir children and adults imagination about looking at the environment in a creative way or reinvestigating the creative possibilities in natural or found materials. Perhaps the best and most fun elements of Earth Explorers are the exciting range of workshops for the children. The show was opened by Green Party Minister for the Environment, John Gormley See the www.ark.ie

The Ark, Europe’s first custom-built Children’s Cultural Centre, programmes, promotes and hosts high quality cultural work which is by children, for children and about children (3 – 14 years).

Enjoy!!

Cathy

Ps I always get a lot of comments about my DNA piece, I made it not long after finishing my MA when I without a studio and a job, wondering if I was going to be able to continue in the arts. I made it from the site where I now live. I was living in a mobile home at the time, the green in the background is my beloved spruce forest whose fallen twigs form the DNA ‘backbone’. It found its way into the Irish Times, the New York Hall of Science, and is permanently on display in the Department of Zoology, Trinity College, Dublin and in private collections.

Today details were finalized on an upcoming 3 day summer camp that I will be co-facilitating with Roberta Salazar, executive director of Rivers and Birds. The camp will explore sustainability and ecology through art, games and other hands on projects. If you have kids who might be interested in attending, please call us at 575-776-5200 to reserve a place by June 25th, 2009. We hope that this will be a pilot project for camps and workshops in future years!

3 Days of art, ecology and games in nature

Interesting comment here from Cathy Fitzgerald – thought I would put it up here so you could all have a read…

Hi all at the Dock!

Just thought I would let you know that the UK is having its first Art & Forestry conference in the UK this week June 10, 09 as part of the RSA Art & Ecology programme).

I did a solo exhibition and public film screening at The Dock in 2006 on ‘the local project’ about the large amount of broadleaf forests that were planted by local Leitrim people in the early nineties across Co. Leitrim (it was a Crann initiative led by Jan Alexander and funded by the Irish Forest Service). Since then I’ve used the knowledge I have gained working with foresters on a SLOW Art forest project in my own wood in south Co. Carlow. My art & ecology notebook blog documents an ongoing diary in images, short films conversations between myself, foresters, our local community & beyond, detailing an example of how we are turning our small 20 year old monoculture spruce plantation into an ecologically & economically sustainable real FOREST.

 If you are interested you can see more at http://www.ecoartnotebook.com, my recent short film ‘burning bright’ also selected for Carlow Eigse film festival 2009.

I also lead a small art and ecology group online through the Transition Network, http://transitiontownsireland.ning.com/group/tti_artecologygroup which anyone working in this area is welcome to join.

Anyway, thanks to the Dock for initially supporting/showcasing this work,

Cathy Fitzgerald

ecoartnotebook.com

our new baby Ash forest is coming up!, originally uploaded by CathyArt.

Our forest floor is now covered with tiny green seedlings, our free future forest. We are finding it hard to walk now and not squash any but they’ll keep coming up next year too.

From all the seedlings appearing, we know it’s going to be mostly ash, with a sprinkle of oak type forest. Meanwhile the big pioneer’s, the alder and sitka spruce are working hard to give the little one’s shelter.

PS want to try a green gym; we are chipping again, with a decent chipper this weekend – all welcome, bring bags to take home the free chippings. Weather forecast suggests we might get the barbie out too!

There has been a lot of activity in the UK recently led by the RSA Arts & Ecology programme in trying to take a snapshot of all the arts and ecology activity happening in the UK in June ‘09 – aptly named RESPOND! It’s one of their projects for United Nation’s Environmental Programme UNEP World Environment Day on June 5! (That’s local/EU election day here in Ireland! – the theme for 2009 iThe theme for WED 2009 is ‘Your Planet Needs You-UNite to Combat Climate Change’. It reflects the urgency for nations to agree on a new deal at the crucial climate convention meeting in Copenhagen some 180 days later in the year, and the links with overcoming poverty and improved management of forests.)

If anything its really heartening to see the variety of discussions, projects and interdisciplinary events been listed across the UK. For a long time I have felt isolated in my own practice as the very limited amount of such activites in art magazines and the general media (although a 2nd Art & Ecology MOOT seminar is happening here in Kilkenny this week, in my own workplace – you are all invited!!)

I also wonder if in time the Irish Science gallery.ie or other organisations such as Ireland’s alternative green education organisate Cultivate.ie will join links with the RSA? I was involved with Cultivate’s ‘06 Emergence Art & Ecology exhibition and such a partnership could hardly be anything except positive in my view.

Here’s a taster of some of the UK events that are listed on the Respond blog!

This one below caught my eye, naturally, and I have already asked if they would like a contribution from Ireland, as so far Arts in Forestry is just looking at the UK only… grrrrr!!! However, I have already written and asked if I could gate-crash ;-D – It’s been organisedPaul Tabbush on behalf of the Forestry Commission, in partnership with the Royal Society for the Arts. Paul is an Independent Consultant who recently retired as Head of Social and Economic Research at Forest Research (the Research Agency of the Forestry Commission)

Arts in Forestry

10th June 2009

London

Taking ‘arts’ in the broadest sense to include all relevant media, the meeting will consider what art can do for forestry, and what forestry can do for artists, drawing on practical examples. The focus of this (first) meeting will be on England, although experience and issues relating to the other GB countries may be discussed. Depending on the outcome of the meeting, further discussions may be held in Scotland and Wales. More…

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Poetry for adults/and children:

Ecopoetics on Haldon
Skylines festival
CCANW
Haldon Forest Park
Exeter

Ecopoetics is the study of the ways that creative writing can address ecological issues. Historically associated with Romantic and pastoral poetry, this investigation now extends further into new realms such as urban environments and digital technologies.

Featuring work by 15 poets, including Sean Bonney, Allen Fisher, Cynthia Hogue, Redell Olsen, Maggie O’Sullivan and Alice Oswald ( I just love Alice’s work ‘The Dart’ which includes all the voices, human and otherwise along the Dart river).

Skylines is curated by Devon-based poet, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett .

www.ccanw.co.uk
Ecopoetics: language & landscape

Download CCANW Spring Programme [PDF 548 KB]

And this is big general overview of all the big names from land art movement from the ’70s to now…

Radical Nature

Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969–2009

19 June 2009 – 18 October 2009
Barbican Art GalleryRadical Nature draws on ideas that have emerged out of Land Art, environmental activism, experimental architecture and utopianism. The exhibition is designed as one fantastical landscape, with each piece introducing into the gallery space a dramatic portion of nature. Work by pioneering figures such as the architectural collective Ant Farm and visionary architect Richard Buckminster Fuller, artists Joseph Beuys, Agnes Denes, Hans Haacke and Robert Smithson are shown alongside pieces by a younger generation of practitioners including Heather and Ivan Morison, R&Sie (n), Philippe Rahm and Simon Starling. Radical Nature also features specially commissioned and restaged historical installations, some of which are located in the outdoor spaces around the Barbican while a satellite project by the architectural collective EXYZT is situated off site.

A fully illustrated catalogue, with a foreword by environmental campaigner and writer Jonathon Porritt, accompanies the exhibition

Daily 11am–8pm

Wednesday 11am–6pm

Every Thursday LATE until 10pm

Posted using ShareThis

Just thought I would post this as it’s happening in my work place next week. Mary (Kilkenny Arts Officer) and Jean (Education Curator, Butler Gallery, Kilkenny) have been working hard on the 2nd Moot event on Art and the Environment; the first event a year ago had some very useful info, particularly Gavin Harte letting us know about the 10 Pink Rules for Environmental Education which I later blogged about as I think all artists working in this area should consider them too. Paul O’Brien is one of my past tutors at NCAD.

Details:
Wednesday May 20 2009
Kilkenny County Council Arts Office, no. 72 John Street
Doors open at 7.45pm Starting at 8pm
Admission Free
Email: jean@butlergallery.com

Kilkenny County Council’s Arts Office in collaboration with the Butler Gallery is delighted to launch the sixth in the series of MOOT discussions, debates and seminars. MOOT is a continuous creative process providing a forum for powerful, focused and inspirational debates and discussion on a variety of subject matters. These events will, potentially, transform expectations, citing shifts in attitudes, perceptions and beliefs.

MOOT VI is the second in our current series on art and the environment, investigating ecology and sustainable arts practice more specifically, and the potential role that artists, curators, educators and arts managers play in raising awareness of environmental issues and our ecology. This discussion, like previous events, will be an open format event where artists, curators, academics etc. and the general public will be invited to question how arts and culture can contribute to addressing environmental and ecological concerns. Obviously the range of environmental concerns facing us at present are vast, but this MOOT will focus on art, ecology and sustainable ways of living and working.

This panel discussion will take place on Wednesday, May 20th in Kilkenny County Council Arts Office, no. 72 John Street at 8pm and will consist of:

Chairperson Pat Cooke (IRL) Director of Cultural Policy and Arts Management at UCD Dublin
Paul O’ Brien (IRL) Lecturer in aesthetics/ cultural theory in the Faculty of Visual Arts, NCAD Dublin
Rick Faulkner and Christine Keogh (UK) Chrysalis Arts, an artist-led public art company, training and arts development agency
Heather Peak (UK) an artist based in Wales who works collaboratively with Ivan Morrison. Together, they investigate their environmental surroundings through their art, and are currently installing work as part of Radical Nature: Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969–2009 at the Barbican, London

MOOT is jointly organised by Mary Butler, Arts Officer Kilkenny County Council and Jean Tormey, Education Curator, Butler Gallery and is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland

Pat Cooke worked for Ireland\’s state heritage service for over twenty years, where he was director of both Kilmainham Gaol and the Pearse Museum. He took over as Director of the MA in Cultural Policy and Arts Management at UCD in 2006. As a heritage sector manager, Cooke pioneered the use of museums and historic properties in Ireland as sites for major art projects. His experience in the heritage field includes producing cultural and historical exhibitions and audio-visual presentations, and the management of historic sites in line with best principles of conservation practice. Between 2002-2006 he was Chairman of the Irish Museums Association, and chaired a Heritage Council committee charged with developing an accreditation programme for Irish museums. Currently he is an assessor on the implementation of that programme. http://www.ucd.ie/arthistory/postgraduate_ma_culturalpolicy.htm.

Rick Faulkner is an artist/director with Chrysalis. He is a founder member of the company and also works as a freelance consultant. He is a trained engineer and undertakes creative, project management and community consultation work for
Chrysalis. He has excellent advocacy, visioning and presentation skills and is particularly experienced in successfully developing projects through ideas and funding processes. http://www.chrysalisarts.org.uk.

Christine Keogh is development director with Chrysalis. She has worked professionally in the arts since 1980 and has wide experience of local authority arts work, including arts, regeneration and public art commissioning. She is responsible for strategic development and training and undertakes consultancy work, specialising in artists\’ professional development and rural creative industries. http://www.chrysalisarts.org.uk.

Paul O’ Brien is a lecturer in aesthetics and cultural theory in the Faculty of Visual Arts at NCAD. His research interests are in the areas of cultural and critical theory and theory of art, art and technology, new media, ecology, and post-modernism. Publications include \”Hypertext, Changelings and the Digital Fireside\” (chapter in forthcoming book on Ireland and cinema, Wallflower, 2004); \”Under the Surface\” in Profile: Andrew Folan, Gandon, 2002; \”Conspiracies, Computers and Consensus Reality,\”Reframing Consciousness, Intellect, 1999; \”New Toys for Boys\”, The Irish Communications Review, 1997; \”Virtual Redemption: The Role of Interactive Art\”, Point, Number 1, Winter 1995; \”Post-Modernism and Democracy\”, Education Arts Research International, 1993; \”Art and Technology\”, Circa No. 44, Mar/Apr 1989, etc. He has also reviewed many exhibitions of Irish and international artists, and reported on international events in the electronic arts. He recently presented conference papers at the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts at the University of Wales College, Newport, and at Glasgow School of Art, and has participated locally in events in the Digital Hub and Media Lab Europe. http://www.ncad.ie/faculties/visualculture/about.shtml.

Heather Peak is an artist based in Wales who works collaboratively with Ivan Morrison.
Artists Heather and Ivan Morison were born in Desborough and Nottingham, UK, respectively. They have worked together on many projects and have exhibited nationally and internationally. Their work is at once a celebration of and a reflection on simple pleasures and mirrors the passion, process and beauty of their subjects; an astronomer, an ice fisherman, dendrology, floristry, a beekeeper, a pig farmer, Java Sparrows, fungi, science fiction and wildflowers to name a few. Heather & Ivan Morison observe and collect the things they come into contact with, embracing chance encounters and seeking out subjects which are on the edge of daily life. They survey, record and collect to rebuild and re-present the often familiar, investing their observations and discoveries with vigorous fascination. They have a wood in North Wales, where they live and work, which they are developing into an arboretum – a collection of trees gathered from around the world. http://www.globalsurvey.co.uk. http://www.morison.co.uk/.

Image: Untitled, C. Fitzgerald ecoartnotebook.com