The idea of conserving land or building awareness about conservation started when I discovered earth artist, sculptor, Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty in Utah at one of the 1990's art shows at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. (View Robert Smithson at Dia)
From then on, I have researched land art and earthworks. I found many conceptual artists, but no one had a practical application of these ideas until I found Buckminster Fuller.
My passion kept growing for collecting artists that were also conservation artists, concerned with conserving earth's resources, not really knowing how, but the idea was there. So when I later found the practical application of Buckminster Fuller's projects at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, I knew that I was not alone. Bucky inspired me to keep researching.
I found and appreciated the beauty of Andy Goldsworthy's spheres of compacted dirt in the corner of SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico and how inspired conservation ideas and concepts as he worked with the land. He drew attention to how beautiful nature was.
I kept projecting my hopes and dreams for humanity that they would share my passion for conservation of earth's resources and sustainable architecture, or at least make stricter conservation and building laws.
While I was living and working at SITE Santa Fe, I visited the Earthships in Taos. I finally found practical applications of sustainable ideas that were very similar to Findhorn Foundation in Scotland. There were other options other than cob houses, the Earthships were built with recycled tires and bottles of glass.
I found Findhorn Foundation's sustainable ideas also being practiced at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.I knew this because I almost joined Naropa's University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poets and instead I decided to attend the Master of Art in Art Therapy at Southwestern College in Santa Fe. While I was there, I met many current students that were alumni of Naropa. It seemed at the time, that Naropa was apart of our Santa Fe artist's community.
While I was in New York City, visiting my family friends who were painting murals at Kip's Bay, I decided to research the work of Naropa's poet, Anne Waldman at the Poet's House.
While I was a student at Rollins College, I was enrolled in an Environmental Science class and I enjoyed writing poetry about how to take action to conserve and preserve the land, and what was beautiful. That was when I created my Yosemite project (see blog post).
After viewing art installations with Video Art as a medium, at Whitney Biennials, I realized that, with the help of inspiration from Video Artist, Nam Jun Paik, and his student, my art teacher and mentor, Shelley Horton-Trippe, I too, can use video art and painting to express the endless possibilities of where conservation could meet technology, essentially where Trees and Tech meet.
I remember thinking in the 1990's that there was hope of expressing my concerns for conservation and communicating it through technology, through art and if these artists found a way to express the point where conservation met art, and so could I.
I created a painting with a square hole in the center. I placed a video camera in the square and played back the video of the painting making process. With the use a string, multicolored acrylic paint, Ravi Shankar music, I slapped the string on the canvas to make a mark. It was similar to Jackson Pollock's Action Painting Process only he had black and white photographs of him in process, and I had my video playback in color, and with sound.
College of Santa Fe Gallery rejected my multimedia work of art in 1999. So I created an art show for myself, a group show, ROAR, as I invited other artists from the Art Therapy Department, because they were not given any opportunity to show as well.
The rejection did not stop me.
Before attending College of Santa Fe, I chose to develop my passion for photography, so I studied documentary studies at SALT Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine.
My first documentary project with conservation in mind was about recycling cans as I followed around two homeless men on bicycles who recycled cans for money.
My second project was about a photographer, Emile Ohayon, who had lost his wife. My story was featured on the first page of the website, the first digital issue of SALT Magazine. I later studied Documentary Studies at Florida Atlantic University and created a documentary of Boca Helping Hands, where I volunteered to help people with food insecurity.
While studying Studio Art at College of Santa Fe, I found Paolo Soleri's Arcosanti project in Arizona. I noticed his name after a few String Cheese Incident Concerts at the Paolo Soleri Amphitheater in Santa Fe. That's when I realized that it was named after this artist that I kept hearing about when I was younger.
He fulfilled his mission and I wanted to see it! I visited Arcosanti with my friend, Mike. We ate lunch and listened to the new family, raising children, declaring Arcosanti their home. We spoke about future generations to come.
It inspired me to keep conserving land and after living in the Arizona and New Mexico deserts, I started thinking how to also conserve water for the trees. How were we going to conserve the land for future generations?
Paolo Soleri was not the only one working on building a sustainable future. Jacques Fresco was too. When I studied at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, I discovered Jacques Fresco's The Venus Project. Like Bucky, Fresco also used geodesic domes for hurricane strength homes. Since the Venus Project was in Florida, maybe he had an idea about how to conserve water. I kept researching.
I come by the idea of conservation and sustainability naturally. I originally learned of the idea of sustainable communities when my parents spoke about Findhorn, where they grew cabbages the size of cars! I was born into a family with these values. I was surrounded by adult, friends of my parents, that had helped to create sustainable communities and projects such as famous New York photographer, Wingate Paine, known for Mirror of Venus and The Book of Surrender, was a friend of Peter and Eileen Caddy at Findhorn Community in Scotland. My artistic parents knew many other artists who were also living in the ashram in New York City. One of our family friends studied with Ann Wigmore, lover of wheat grass, who created Hippocrates Health Institute, where I had the honor and privilege to stay in West Palm Beach, Florida in the early 2000's.
After I traveled across the United States of America to visit Arcosanti, my friend Mike and I visited as many eco-villages as we could. I found Hostel in the Forest on the east coast and near where I was living at the time in the state of Florida. I stayed in a treehouse overlooking a huge labyrinth with lightening bugs.
Hostel in the Forest, in Brunswick, Georgia was a fascinating experience for me. I swam in the lake, did my chores, used their compost toilets, and admired the glass house!
I admire every completed project because as an artist, I know how challenging it can be to persevere, to have a vision, and work towards it, no matter what the current circumstances are of the planet or no matter who believes in your vision, or thinks it is worthy of being created.
To all the artists mentioned above, WELL DONE!!
I am still looking for an ecovillage, garden in a sustainable city that conserves land and water. I would love to help design a project where we can plant trees as many as we uproot, if we have to. I hope we can conserve the water, and keep human waste out of it.
I love flowers, trees, animals, and all the works of Nature as they pass before us in time and space. - Luther Burbank
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