Overdue update

Here I sit on a quiet Sunday morning a few days before Winter Solstice, witnessing the sun (yes, the sun) crest over the edge of our hollow. It is a cold, but magnificent morning. A morning when the crises of the world, the dramas of intimate friends and family members and the typical aches and pains visiting this body seem to be a few frames away. I can contemplate a walk in a bit, the wheezing noises coming out of one of my cats (poor old Shotsi) and a bowl of red quinoa cooked in hemp milk with pears, spiced with vanilla from Chiapas and cinnamon. There's a gentleness about this day that is such a blessing, and it goes without saying, that I almost never take the riches of this current life for granted. My loved ones upstairs sleeping, the heat on, the water running, food in the larder....it is really the penultimate of success, but few folks seem to notice this . The clatter and clamor of so many others, running after carrots that are apparitions, sometimes creates static in my ears and dizzies my better self.

But I digress. After my walk I am off to the studio, a process that makes me simply happy - not deliriously so. My home studio is a tiny place where one stride takes me from one working station to another (there are impossibly three places to work in so tiny a space). Still I am making do, developing projects that assemble elsewhere into larger manifestations. Working with components that grow into something more substantial (kinda like seeds) has been my style for years now. Having this new studio in Tacoma is really going to be a fascinating shift...what happens when you have a mural sized wall to draw on, and a floor space where large sculptural forms can grow, where groups can sit at tables and develop a concept and build there in the space. Imagine that!

So my installation for VALISE is growing one hand-sewn seed packet at a time. Collaged models for story hives, too big for a doll house but definitely big enough for a sand box, are lined up on every surface, as are the seedling planter trays and dozens of seedling containers, half of them with a membrane made out of a photo of an eco-calamity. The others will be filled with dirt and native plant seedlings in good time. My desktop computer is filled with dozens of digital collages of surreal versions of myco and phyto remediation. I'll post a few soon. The show's title is Reframing Eden: Phase #2 - Gathering Pollen, and I'll need two rocking chairs and a digital recorder to make the gathering of stories possible (of course some gardeners/farmers willing to spill their beans would be useful, too). I posted my need on Vashon All and received over a half dozen rocking chairs - the digital recorder should be delivered by the Generous Goddess of the Solstice...we will see.

I'll be in the Tacoma studio for a few days before the 7th, drawing proposals for the 3rd iteration of Eden Reframed. It will be an initiation of the Tacoma space as a creative one. I'm really looking forward to it. Better bring my smudging supplies, given how much toxic energy has moved through there. The 3rd version of Eden Reframed is being proposed for the Burton Skate Park on Vashon. I am hopeful that we will build a demonstration garden and sit spot that will inspire many more eco-art projects at that site. It needs a lot of work.

More soon.

Next steps

The day after my disappointing news, I broadcast the "seeds" more widely, letting various key people in my island networks know that my project was at risk. I received enthusiastic responses and my heart was and is warmed. I have a meeting with one possible community partner tomorrow. More news soon, I hope.

Disappointing News

The day after returning from my whirlwind talking tour, I put together an application for the proposed orchard site. This was required by the Board who oversees the site. I submitted it with multiple photos and detailed attachments and waited. Yesterday the committee met, and tonight I received a short rejection letter. There was no chance for discussion about ways to adapt my vision to their needs. I had been told that we would meet, but that opportunity was not offered. I am deeply disappointed. I know that what I proposed was ambitious, but the funding and the community support to make it happen was all there.

I now am having to rethink again where this project will go. Maybe my dreams will offer direction.
If anyone reading this blog has suggestions of sites on Vashon Island, please get in touch. In the meantime, I am going into the studio....

Moving Forward, One Story at a Time

http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/vashon/vib/opinion/104361143.html

The formal approval of the orchard site is still on HOLD and may be for weeks to come, but that doesn't mean that I have to be on HOLD. I put the above article in the local newspaper and it will hopefully bring in some participants as part of the community "animation" of the project. Community cultural animation is a term used to describe a particular kind of community art where the participants become self-determining creators of the project, and the artist(s) facilitate that process, bringing tools, structure and organization to assist in what unfolds. In this case, the forms (story hives) will become "envelopes" for the poetry of the community's stories. Since I have only gotten one response to my call for stories so far, I will have to do a poster campaign and some phoning around when I get back to town on the 29th of October.

I leave for the Bay Area on the 12th and will give a talk at Laney College in Oakland on the morning of the 13th, in Andree Singer Thompson's Ecoart Matters Class at 10am in the Art Center room 130. Free. All are welcome. This is on 10th St. across from the Oakland Museum & Convention Center.

I'll be moderating the Bioneers Panel called: Teaching Art as a Subversive Activity: Eco-Art Meets Cultural Democracy in San Rafael, CA on October 17th. See this link for more information: http://www.bioneers.org/conference/2010-conference-sessions-and-events/teaching-art-as-a-subversive-activity

Finally I will also be speaking at the Gentle Actions conference in Oslo, Norway on Oct 23rd and 24th. My topic will be Stirring the Compost: Eco-art Strategies for Resistance and Resilience. http://gentleactions.wordpress.com/about/

I'm waiting to hear whether I'll be speaking at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn on the 26th of October. I will post an announcement when I know for certain.

My OP-ED piece for the Vashon Beachcomber (will appear 10/6/10)

I grew up in a family that did not practice a religion, but whenever the weather allowed, my parents knelt on the earth, planting seeds, weeding or harvesting. Although I did not then understand their actions as a form of prayer, I do now.

Some of my first memories are of crawling through my parents’ vegetable garden tasting and smelling the bounty growing in their neatly kept rows. Before I learned to speak, I was digging in the dirt and tossing compost into the bin. As I grew older, I spent hours lifting up rocks to observe insect life and rarely tired of picking berries. Never did I imagine, however, that gardens would become a leitmotif of not only my life but my art practice as well.

In 2003 I was hired to create and teach interdisciplinary arts courses at the University of Washington Tacoma. My new colleagues advised me to look for a home on Vashon Island. They felt it would be a good fit, and it has been. This year I am experiencing my first paid sabbatical, after more than three decades of teaching all over the continent. While most people might imagine that professors go away to do research somewhere exotic, I’m doing my creative work right here on my own island. It is an extraordinary privilege to slow down and really feel the texture and pulse of where I live.

As part of this year’s artistic journey, I’ve developed a project that will hopefully give back to the community for years to come. UW’s Royalty Research Foundation has awarded me a grant to create a community-based, eco-art project, and I’m excited to invite the community of gardeners and farmers to be participate in this new work entitled “Eden Reframed: Gleaning Abundance.”

Inspired by the work of Vashon Island’s non-profit SEEDS (or Social Ecology Education and Demonstration School), which is currently funded by the Harris and Frances Block Foundation to do a soil remediation project on the south end of the Island, I conceived of a project that involved collecting the stories of gardeners and farmers and placing those stories in interactive sculptures surrounding a meditation garden. Although the original site for my project has changed and the future site for the eco-art is still in discussion, it is now the season to collect stories. My permaculture design consultants will assist in the restoration of the land once the site is confirmed, and we will disclose more about the project at that time.

As part of this eco-art project, we will build sculptural “story hives” to hold the stories we collect. My collaborator Shahreyar Ataie and I will collect stories like pollen, fill the “combs” with excerpts of those stories and offer up this “honey” to the visitors in the garden. Story benches with text burnt and carved onto their surfaces will be placed where visitors can rest and contemplate the garden and a video will be created so that visitors from afar can enjoy the stories and garden on the Web.

We are curious to learn what inspires the people who plant seeds and how they relate to their work as a spiritual practice. We will ask gardeners and farmers what gives them a sense of future, what mystery guides them in the garden, and what heals them about the work of growing food and plants.

During a time when many aspects of our world are undergoing dramatic change, it is important to be reminded about what gives our neighbors faith in the future. The harvest of “Eden Reframed” will be available to everyone who visits the eco-art site for years to come.

If you are interested in participating in “Eden Reframed,” contact Beverly Naidus at edenreframed@gmail.com.

First steps, revised

We are still waiting to go through another hoop to get approval from the board of directors at the new site, and we are getting a little impatient. But I am determined to get started with aspects of the project that are not dependent on a particular site. Our story "hives" and benches require some "action/research" so I need to get the word out. If I write a short article for the local paper I can inspire some gardeners and farmers to participate. So Shahreyar and I will go out with video camera in hand, and start harvesting stories. I will also brainstorm with him re. the structure, size and dimensions of the hives. Collecting "pollen" to make "honey."

Almost there

Well, the new proposal has been approved by UW, so now I just need to hear from the folks at the new site, and we'll be on our way. Cross your sticky fingers with me and we'll be picking fruit next summer and sharing it all around.