On Beauty ( the zen garden piece)
Enjoyed this essay on the garden, with it’s mélange of the wild and untrammeled along with the measured planning of garden paths. It’s a subject dear to my heart as a gardener, and so interesting to hear what another gardener thinks and how she sees.
There are some choice quotes here:
“Every garden worth its salt becomes paradise by being both a safe refuge from the madness of the world and a field of action within the cacophony of this very world.”
“Consult the genius of your place in all things and plot paradise with every breath as you garden.”
“Don’t just consider your own joy at the surprise lily fragrance: think of the delight of the ball-headed cabbages as well.” ---I especially like this conceit about the cabbages.
And splendid advice for drylands dwellers:
“If you live in the desert, please don’t replumb paradise and create acres of emerald lawn and sunken water gardens on arid land. “
…a lesson we still need to pay more attention to in New Mexico. Among landscape customers, there’s been rather a surfeit of folks wanting water features in the last decade. Understandable, how do we quench our thirst for the refreshment of water here, its sounds, and those verdant colors not plentiful here that water promotes? I’ve come up with some solutions to that question; we need a lot more to assuage varied tastes.
And I concur with this gardener in her comment that how the garden is marked out and defined is of primary importance. I learned this thoroughly in one of my New Mexico gardens. It was in an old cattle corral, below a windmill and a “dirt tank” (the term ranchers use for a pond by the windmill) that had gone to grasses. There was a distinct layout there already with the enclosure of the corral, but I planted orchard trees outside the corral, and found myself perplexed about where my garden was, until I fenced around the whole, orchard and garden combined. Then the weeds extending in all directions no longer called me to attention. I knew what to tend and what not to; the fence provided a way to delineate where active attention was required and where attention could be of a more contemplative sort, unmoved by any need to perform garden tasks. The end of that confusion was a distinct relief.
There is also a visual energy flow to be mindful of in garden layout. Even if the garden is enclosed, it’s useful to create a visual pathway out, The Way Out. This is where and how the garden joins the world, and how we, in the paradise we’ve carefully nurtured, find spatial reflections of within and beyond, of safety and venture, for all the things we may be musing on when we go to the garden. Here in Albuquerque, I especially try to find this for people with a view of Sandia---and especially for the watermelon moment at sunset when she blushes all-out red.
Farmer in Chief
Michael Pollan hits a lot of nails on the head. He has done so in this letter to Obama. I like the idea of calling the changes we need in fod production solar farming; that relates it to our energy shifts away from fossil fuels and I think suggests forward positive change to people.
The appearance of the White House vegetable garden this past summer had something to do with this open letter. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that the press followed up on it after the announcements that Michelle was putting it in. I kept trying to imagine who and how it was going to be tended---that would have been some good human interest coverage to further promote backyard vegetables.
I hope Pollan's mention of Wes Jackson's work at the Land Institute is the beginning of more press for the efforts underway there. If we can perennialize our major food crops it will save a major amount of energy and water (I thought Pollan could have focused on how much water it takes, and the concept of virtual water, a little more) in food production. Both perennial grain crops and virtual water are pretty new concepts, and publicity for these forward-thinking ideas is good.
Just 2 nails weren't hit quite squarely. Seems to me we need to forego meat on the menu more than just one day a week. One day a week doesn't provide much experience cooking altenatives. The other square hit I believe we need in an open letter is to clarify the thinking that the meat industry produces "waste". It is only waste because we think of it that way. In nature there is no such thing as waste. All manures can be recycled back to the land, where they are one of just 2 major natural sources of nitrogen fertilizer---the other being the legumes fixing nitrogen from the air. So to start thinking sustainably, i.e. in terms of the natural planetary cycles that sustainability is really all about, it's useful to begin identifying manure as a resource rather than as waste.
Polymers are Forever.
A couple years ago I realized for the first time that plastic is a resource. What that means is that, after the impact-intensive process of creating it from petroleum, we should reserve it for things with essential functions, like computing, drilling, sawing and cashier’s drawers, and not for trinkets, disposable water bottles and the merchandise packaging that every year now gets more difficult to pry off the goods, where it’s designed to make the object of our desire look bigger than it really is.
Nurdles are sobering stuff. I knew about the rubber duckies who now float around the world. I wasn’t aware that plastic bits have become food for zooplankton, working their way up through the food chain. Nor was I aware that we can now beautify our skin with plastic exfoliants. Or that there was any such thing as a nurdle, and certainly not that they’re magnets for PCBs and DDT.
Woe on us clever humans. In the book Ishi, Last of his Tribe the anthropologist Alfred Kroeber records in the frontispiece that Ishi, who was captured and went to live in the Anthropology Museum in Berkeley, where he gave demonstrations of how his tribe before annihilation made fire from flintstones---looked on us as children, smart but not wise.
I wrote Precautionary Principle all over this article. Some years ago the city of San Franciso adopted the precautionary principle. Haven’t heard how far they took it. The principle seems to have dropped from significant mention, but we need to bring it back. It posits that instead of organizing the introduction of new substances (eg plastic, DDT) and processes (e.g.AC electricity, wi-fi, neither of which humans were evolved for exposures to) so that the substance/process ends up proven unsafe by harm to those subjected to it, that the burden of proof instead be on those who want to introduce and profit from it---think GMOs, RGBH, and on and on.
In the short term, it appears there is really nothing we can do about all the plastic we’ve released into the environment. I am intrigued, however, with the epochal time frame mentioned at the end of the article. That it took microbes a long time to learn to eat plant lignin and cellulose, and that perhaps microbes will be able in an epoch or two beyond us to learn how to digest plastic. It reminds me of a wild idea I heard this summer from the body-work community: that if we do obliterate the feasibility of human survival on the planet, there is always the possibility that the viruses (swine flu perhaps?) will carry human genes through to start human-like life here again. Not able to immediately check facts here, but isn’t it the case that viruses live by incorporating themselves into our DNA to replicate themselves? A wild idea that may not be so wild from the human perspective if that’s correct.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
interesting NY Times piece running the gamut of questions and characters we covered in the food section..... and hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
are we all but potential had
i found the elegy reading a little dull and wistful. isn't that a good ground for motivation and action? it was like a poetic tantrum. lovely, don't get me wrong, but that is the stuff that art and ecology is made of. invade the wasteland and place signs of birds that once lived there and do no more. host meetings, post posts asking if there might be others that might miss that as well. do something. complaining nostalgically is still complaining.
and then there's gaviotas. oh my goodness, let's go! NOW! i had to look up the pisolithus tinctorius (spelled pizolithus in the text) and it's beautiful.
it literally looks like a turd. pardon my language, but it's quite an interesting metaphor. as a printmaker, this stuff is gold.
this accidental experiment that brought the forest and all its critters back to life. the community, the energy, the devotion, the equality, the respect should be our model. "papa, sing to the flowers to help them grow". i grew up saying, " daddy take me to disney".
we should all, all over the globe, get to a point where we can make the claim that we produce over 70% of our food and energy needs.
very inspiring. i'd like to go. and stay forever.
and then there's gaviotas. oh my goodness, let's go! NOW! i had to look up the pisolithus tinctorius (spelled pizolithus in the text) and it's beautiful.
it literally looks like a turd. pardon my language, but it's quite an interesting metaphor. as a printmaker, this stuff is gold. this accidental experiment that brought the forest and all its critters back to life. the community, the energy, the devotion, the equality, the respect should be our model. "papa, sing to the flowers to help them grow". i grew up saying, " daddy take me to disney".
we should all, all over the globe, get to a point where we can make the claim that we produce over 70% of our food and energy needs.
very inspiring. i'd like to go. and stay forever.
glass airplanes & jacaranda trees
oliver's brief elegy to a cape cod dump and weisman's paean to gaviotas in colombia tell stories of landscapes lost and found, and humanity's role, embraced or denied, in the complex and often redemptive processes of healing.
the waste land elegy is an ominously quiet portent of the effects of human overpopulation, every day more clearly a matter for nature, not engineering, to resolve.
the story of gaviotas' pines, on the other hand, extols simple human effort and generosity bringing to mind jean giono's tale of elzéard bouffier in the man who planted trees (l'homme qui plantait des arbres) and the far reaching effects that unselfish stewardship of earth's resources can still have.
we will always need such stories, and i'm glad to have these.
the waste land elegy is an ominously quiet portent of the effects of human overpopulation, every day more clearly a matter for nature, not engineering, to resolve.
the story of gaviotas' pines, on the other hand, extols simple human effort and generosity bringing to mind jean giono's tale of elzéard bouffier in the man who planted trees (l'homme qui plantait des arbres) and the far reaching effects that unselfish stewardship of earth's resources can still have.
we will always need such stories, and i'm glad to have these.
Response to The Trees and Wasteland: An Elegy
Wasteland is a lament. It is a mournful cry against the destruction of the nature that is perhaps inevitable as a town develops and grows. The repeated phrase, "But this is an elegy" throughout, makes this clear. In complete contrast, The Trees is a working model for how humans can take resources, develop them thoughtfully in relation to the environment, and improve not only the landscape, but the economic and social community of the residents.
Gaviotas sounds like Nirvana. For a place like this to prosper, it would require that all the residents work equally hard for the common good. When reading the section where Jose Ignacio went back to inspect wells that had been installed by Gaviotas on and around the mouth of the Rio Magdalena, I realized the implication. Technology along, installed in a specific location, cannot implement change or improve conditions in that location. A community effort, all with a common goal, and the willingness to adapt for the survival of the community is what makes the difference.
I have never heard of any community like this surviving long-term. It gives me hope that it is possible. It requires complete commitment to the community and a sense of selflessness. I wonder if this concept is even possible on anything less than small enclave scale in the United States?
Gaviotas sounds like Nirvana. For a place like this to prosper, it would require that all the residents work equally hard for the common good. When reading the section where Jose Ignacio went back to inspect wells that had been installed by Gaviotas on and around the mouth of the Rio Magdalena, I realized the implication. Technology along, installed in a specific location, cannot implement change or improve conditions in that location. A community effort, all with a common goal, and the willingness to adapt for the survival of the community is what makes the difference.
I have never heard of any community like this surviving long-term. It gives me hope that it is possible. It requires complete commitment to the community and a sense of selflessness. I wonder if this concept is even possible on anything less than small enclave scale in the United States?
illegal laundry hanging?
Interesting that even when people are trying to be green, they can get in trouble!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091118/us_nm/us_usa_laundry
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091118/us_nm/us_usa_laundry
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
NYTimes on the Spiral Jetty, entropy and conservation efforts/intentions.
Personally, I think protecting the jetty from the mining (but I have a double interest there; useful to site a historic artwork as a reason to stave off industrial pillaging of our natural resources... art will save our world!) and the fertilizer pond project nearby while allowing the actual processes of the rising and lowering water levels is quite reflective of Smithson's intentions. That human visitors to the site have interacted with it, perhaps to its detriment perhaps simply another aspect of reflecting after the act of viewing, is rather sweet. As opposed to the sterile environment of museums where a uniformed guard grumbles or gravitates towards a visitor if they dare get too physically close to a piece of art, Land Art projects provide an opportunity to be within the art itself as well. And we could all use being within art more in our lives.
Personally, I think protecting the jetty from the mining (but I have a double interest there; useful to site a historic artwork as a reason to stave off industrial pillaging of our natural resources... art will save our world!) and the fertilizer pond project nearby while allowing the actual processes of the rising and lowering water levels is quite reflective of Smithson's intentions. That human visitors to the site have interacted with it, perhaps to its detriment perhaps simply another aspect of reflecting after the act of viewing, is rather sweet. As opposed to the sterile environment of museums where a uniformed guard grumbles or gravitates towards a visitor if they dare get too physically close to a piece of art, Land Art projects provide an opportunity to be within the art itself as well. And we could all use being within art more in our lives.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
an appeal...
Dear all,
I will need help on Saturday Nov 21, taking down my piece at the CCA Mapping show. If any of you have time, I would appreciate a few hands very much. Its an opportunity to see the show, albeit in its disintegration, and get some experience in the ways of non-profit galleries.
Just let me know in class if you can come. We'll work out the transportation.
best,
Catherine
I will need help on Saturday Nov 21, taking down my piece at the CCA Mapping show. If any of you have time, I would appreciate a few hands very much. Its an opportunity to see the show, albeit in its disintegration, and get some experience in the ways of non-profit galleries.
Just let me know in class if you can come. We'll work out the transportation.
best,
Catherine
reponse to readings
i am taking a page from de vries and removing capital letters from my work for the next week. it will be an interesting personal experience - already finding myself struggling to put aside this ingrained habit just 2 sentences in. the combination of botany, poetry and creation of art does not seem far-fetched at all when reading this article. i am interested in his theory that nothing happens by chance - all is simply a reaction to various stimuli input. very interesting theory!
"beauty counts" and "paradise garden" - what a lovely phrases to keep in mind. and the concept that a garden could be "peopled" by making it so beautiful that a person is compelled to stop. while i love gardening, i have never framed it in quite that way. lovely. and the mental image of artis alan gussow's slit canvas garden walls will stay with me. and i, too, will try to remember to step back and breathe.
"beauty counts" and "paradise garden" - what a lovely phrases to keep in mind. and the concept that a garden could be "peopled" by making it so beautiful that a person is compelled to stop. while i love gardening, i have never framed it in quite that way. lovely. and the mental image of artis alan gussow's slit canvas garden walls will stay with me. and i, too, will try to remember to step back and breathe.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
snow in a silver bowl
It sounds like it was fun to be de Vries.
I appreciate his wide range of subject matter and explorations from the Upanishads and Zen rather than objects. To get to the experience itself. I frequently wonder how to let my ego step out of the way ...enough to help something emerge?
I was just reading about some of Kenga Kuma’s work on organic architecture. Similar sentiment in some ways.
“I want to escape from the abstract and aspire to the organic.
A thing that is organic is different from a thing that is simply natural or made of natural materials. A thing that is organic must possess the generative dynamism characteristic of living things”
“We do not care what the whole is like, but things that are organic, taking as they do different forms, surprise us each time. In fact, they do more than surprise us. Organic things are so unique and endearing that they inspire in us feelings of affection and a desire to caress them.
www.toto.co.jp/gallerma/ex091015/index_e.htm
It is interesting to pair de Vries and Wendy Johnson. I am not sure why they are?
I have lived at Green Gulch Farm. Briefly and beautifully. The drawing of the center garden brought me to tears. It is a dear space and I think it is made dear by the memory to slow down, to pay attention. There is a tradition there that everyone goes out into the fields in the beginning of the spring to plant the garden. So we rise and sit the dawn service then make our way to the fog arising fields. All are there. The Roshi, the cook, the priests, the farmies, and the elders. The experience is quiet and simple. And yet it is a very strict discipline.
Snow in a silver bowl
Beauty is enough. But this requires a wild patience. Is this what De Vries is getting at when he says “art is a discipline that contributes to becoming consciousness. Art is a free domain.
I appreciate his wide range of subject matter and explorations from the Upanishads and Zen rather than objects. To get to the experience itself. I frequently wonder how to let my ego step out of the way ...enough to help something emerge?
I was just reading about some of Kenga Kuma’s work on organic architecture. Similar sentiment in some ways.
“I want to escape from the abstract and aspire to the organic.
A thing that is organic is different from a thing that is simply natural or made of natural materials. A thing that is organic must possess the generative dynamism characteristic of living things”
“We do not care what the whole is like, but things that are organic, taking as they do different forms, surprise us each time. In fact, they do more than surprise us. Organic things are so unique and endearing that they inspire in us feelings of affection and a desire to caress them.
www.toto.co.jp/gallerma/ex091015/index_e.htm
It is interesting to pair de Vries and Wendy Johnson. I am not sure why they are?
I have lived at Green Gulch Farm. Briefly and beautifully. The drawing of the center garden brought me to tears. It is a dear space and I think it is made dear by the memory to slow down, to pay attention. There is a tradition there that everyone goes out into the fields in the beginning of the spring to plant the garden. So we rise and sit the dawn service then make our way to the fog arising fields. All are there. The Roshi, the cook, the priests, the farmies, and the elders. The experience is quiet and simple. And yet it is a very strict discipline.
Snow in a silver bowl
Beauty is enough. But this requires a wild patience. Is this what De Vries is getting at when he says “art is a discipline that contributes to becoming consciousness. Art is a free domain.
weaving paradise
reading johnson on divinely superfluous beauty and then de vries on chance and change suggests the many opportunities to weave quotidien abrash into divine beauty.
through the unraveling of beauty comes beauty by way of chance and a chance to begin anew to weave beauty again in a rhythm of creation and dissolution, each step again producing the chance of beauty in process.
thus the world is garden.
through the unraveling of beauty comes beauty by way of chance and a chance to begin anew to weave beauty again in a rhythm of creation and dissolution, each step again producing the chance of beauty in process.
thus the world is garden.
for laurie lang re: bees
Native Bee Presentation: Sat Nov 14, after lunch at the NM Beekeepers Assoc Meeting, Immanuel Presbyterian Church 114 Carlisle
Talk will introduce the Native Bee Habitat Outdoor Classroom Project of the NM Bee Collaborative, a volunteer organization whose goal is to foster a string of safe havens across the countryside for our native bees and honeybees under duress. Arid lands are centers of diversity for bees, and NM is estimated to have as many as 1,200 species.
Most native species are solitary nesters who do not sting, and are skilled builders with mud, pebbles, pithy sticks, pine pitch and leaves. After briefly meeting the major bee families and looking at their life histories, we'll focus on bumble bees, whose health has been threatened by agribusiness green house production of cherry tomatoes, strawberries and other commodities now available out of season.
Call Laurie at 505. 220 . 2726 for specific info about time presentation is scheduled for
Talk will introduce the Native Bee Habitat Outdoor Classroom Project of the NM Bee Collaborative, a volunteer organization whose goal is to foster a string of safe havens across the countryside for our native bees and honeybees under duress. Arid lands are centers of diversity for bees, and NM is estimated to have as many as 1,200 species.
Most native species are solitary nesters who do not sting, and are skilled builders with mud, pebbles, pithy sticks, pine pitch and leaves. After briefly meeting the major bee families and looking at their life histories, we'll focus on bumble bees, whose health has been threatened by agribusiness green house production of cherry tomatoes, strawberries and other commodities now available out of season.
Call Laurie at 505. 220 . 2726 for specific info about time presentation is scheduled for
Monday, November 9, 2009
some news and a poem
Plastic gyres in the oceans
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The Second Coming (Slouching towards Bethlehem)
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Friday, November 6, 2009
Rubber Stamps - additional
When I called to get an estimate, I learned that the prices for rubber stamps have doubled. It is a bit cheaper online but time could be an issue. rubberstamps.com seems to have more reasonable prices but you would need to submit a .tif or a .pdf file to get it done. They turn around in two business days - it would be cutting it very close though.
sequence for printing
Of course, the 2 pages uploaded in reverse order... The bottom three images are steps 1, 2 and 3 with the top three images being 4, 5 and 6. If that makes sense.
quick and dirty block printing directions
I took some pics tonight as I was block printing - thought it might be useful for anyone considering but maybe it has been a while?? I have cutting tools and a brayer that I am willing to let anyone borrow if they need to. It could keep costs down for everyone and they can be returned to me next Friday. Email me if you want to use the tools. Thanks.
rubber stamps
Southwest Rubber Stamp Co
www.swrubberstamp.com
6717 Lomas Blvd NE
Albuquerque, NM 87110-6817
(505) 889-3166
Savannah, this is the place I was thinking of - on Lomas rather than Central.
www.swrubberstamp.com
6717 Lomas Blvd NE
Albuquerque, NM 87110-6817
(505) 889-3166
Savannah, this is the place I was thinking of - on Lomas rather than Central.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
The Adventures Ahead
Unfortunately it seems that industry will not stop burning coal. The work of Susan Hovorka includes injecting CO 2 1,500 feet underground. This to me sounds equally dangerous. Do we really know the side effects of this? The article states that it will take time to make this process economically safe but what about environmentally safe? It does not seem probable for people to inhabit the moon, why not work harder to save the planet Earth. Better yet why not let the Earth haters move to the moon with their manufacturing plants, nuclear waste and gas guzzling vehicles. The information about biospheres is fascinating. The technology and design of the synthetic ecosystem has great potential. The end of the article "The Carbon Age" made me sad when the author stated that Smalley said"Action on global warming can be driven by heroic leadership or by events it will probably be events". Events will be late.
Unfortunately it seems that industry will not stop burning coal. The work of Susan Hovorka includes injecting CO 2 1,500 feet underground. This to me sounds equally dangerous. Do we really know the side effects of this? The article states that it will take time to make this process economically safe but what about environmentally safe? It does not seem probable for people to inhabit the moon, why not work harder to save the planet Earth. Better yet why not let the Earth haters move to the moon with their manufacturing plants, nuclear waste and gas guzzling vehicles. The information about biospheres is fascinating. The technology and design of the synthetic ecosystem has great potential. The end of the article "The Carbon Age" made me sad when the author stated that Smalley said"Action on global warming can be driven by heroic leadership or by events it will probably be events". Events will be late.
Serpentine California
The ability to convey a message to a viewer and instigate change is a true gift and requires an amazing amount of tact, verbal acuity and instinct to be effective. It is easy to be heavy-handed, resulting in alienation rather than the intended involvement and action. Serpentine California appeals on many levels, not the least being that this is in the form of a graphic novel. In the publishing industry, one section that is actually growing is the graphic novel genre. This reaches primarily high school and college aged people - what a great venue this could be for Kinne! I like the concepts that come through this work. The idea of associations such as the rain on redwood shingles smelling of the forest floor, the lichen on the redwood fences rather than on tree trunks...these are very evocative images that convey a kind of melancholic reminiscence. I agree with Catherine in that this needs some further development, but the potential is magnificent.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Plastic Periodic and Wrong
PLa>823,456 As a result of the Weisman reading I started furiously composing my own Periodic Table of the Elements placing Plastic next to Uranium or Plutonium with a 400 billion year half life. Then I found that no one really knows when plastic decomposes. And the Periodic Table was too complex and not pretty enough. So. I gave up.
Two good things
Some fungal rhizii(sp?) are being propogated as consumers of plastic. I supppose this is hopeful but then what do the fungus become?
China has banned plastic bags. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/china-plastic-bag-ban-saves-1-million-tons-of-oil.php
for laurie lange
Wasteland: An Elegy
Written with the eye of a nature connoisseur, this is a lovely little piece. It hints at what I think is perhaps the most important thing for us to comprehend in facing environmental renewal of the planet: that the planet doesn’t really need us for the greater part of this process---we just think we’re that important in the scheme of things. The author says as much: “I could walk there and see birds I found nowhere else”. Birds choose habitat according to their nature, not according to what we think their tendencies are.
We’ve arrived in an era in which we’re coming to comprehend fully that, rather than our human built improvements being that in nature, oftentimes what we design causes degradation. This is a step in the right direction, but the final step comes when we understand that we’re part of nature, rather than an agent outside of her. This doesn’t mean it’s OK we’ve created burn dumps. What it means is that ecosynthesis happens, and that we’re part of that equation, degradation and all. There is no such thing as perfect, and preservation tends to be an exercise that will sometimes be futile. We do cause extinctions, we do lay land to waste, but other, natural forces do as well.
We’re not the designers here on planet earth---though it seems mostly we have an egocentric notion that we are. Living at the remove we do in “civilized” culture, we’ve cut ourselves off from the kind of exposures that build understanding of the intricate vastness of nature’s plan such as, say, aboriginal cultures had. Nature walks at a burn dump are one way to remedy that and, as the author notes, no other humans were ever encountered there acquainting themselves with the nature of the place.
Soundscapes/Soundwalk
Our soundwalk project and the McCartney reading have enriched my circle of attention Though I’ve worked over the course of decades in media that are tactile, like fiberarts and landscape design, my orientation as an artist has always been with 2D visuals. I’d like ever so much to explore sound further as a medium.
I’m exploring architectural illustration this semester. The treatise on the subject that’s most caught my attention focuses on exercises to convey a tactile sense of space and buildings rather than just a visual rendering of them. The author points out how much vision is attached to our intellectual understanding, rather than a felt sense of a space. In a similar way, soundscapes coax us away from a purely mental world into places where the kinesthetics of sound amplify other gleanings: intuition, perception, eros, dreaming.
Oddly though, the comments McCartney makes about how the success of a recording is a measure of how well the artist knows a space applies also to photography: learning a place over time is the only way to know when the light is just right for that incredible shot. It’s not just drama, like a picture of a fantastic sunset: knowing the place cam convey in a photo what a place is in subtle ways as well.
Mc Cartney speaks of the holding power of a place. I think of the power of silence, and wonder how a recordist would capture it. There is presence in a place where silence has been practiced over the course of centuries; I once visited a gathering place in Phildelphia whose only purpose for 300 years or so has been for gatherings of prayerful silence. It was so deep there, I could fathom no bottom to it. I just wanted to soak it up.
Serpentine California
I hope this comic creator will, or has continued to develop his craft. As comics go, Serpentine California is a beginning effort, but it hints at things it would be interesting to see more fully embodied in the form. What caught my imagination was his evocation of “the elemental passion of small things”, and his hints at the epochal emergence of rocks.
Once in a sharing with others about what peoples’ spiritual experiences were, and where they’ve occurred, it emerged that what everyone shared had happened in nature. Kinne describes a simple kind of spirituality in a quiet way---not a big deal, spiritual.
In psychology, rocks represent the soul, and as I’ve sat with them, I’ve learned this. They’re beings whose marriage with water and with air begets their offspring soil, and dreaming them what comes to me is that their lifetimes are on a scale unimaginable within the skin of a human’s life. Let’s have more comics about rocks!
Written with the eye of a nature connoisseur, this is a lovely little piece. It hints at what I think is perhaps the most important thing for us to comprehend in facing environmental renewal of the planet: that the planet doesn’t really need us for the greater part of this process---we just think we’re that important in the scheme of things. The author says as much: “I could walk there and see birds I found nowhere else”. Birds choose habitat according to their nature, not according to what we think their tendencies are.
We’ve arrived in an era in which we’re coming to comprehend fully that, rather than our human built improvements being that in nature, oftentimes what we design causes degradation. This is a step in the right direction, but the final step comes when we understand that we’re part of nature, rather than an agent outside of her. This doesn’t mean it’s OK we’ve created burn dumps. What it means is that ecosynthesis happens, and that we’re part of that equation, degradation and all. There is no such thing as perfect, and preservation tends to be an exercise that will sometimes be futile. We do cause extinctions, we do lay land to waste, but other, natural forces do as well.
We’re not the designers here on planet earth---though it seems mostly we have an egocentric notion that we are. Living at the remove we do in “civilized” culture, we’ve cut ourselves off from the kind of exposures that build understanding of the intricate vastness of nature’s plan such as, say, aboriginal cultures had. Nature walks at a burn dump are one way to remedy that and, as the author notes, no other humans were ever encountered there acquainting themselves with the nature of the place.
Soundscapes/Soundwalk
Our soundwalk project and the McCartney reading have enriched my circle of attention Though I’ve worked over the course of decades in media that are tactile, like fiberarts and landscape design, my orientation as an artist has always been with 2D visuals. I’d like ever so much to explore sound further as a medium.
I’m exploring architectural illustration this semester. The treatise on the subject that’s most caught my attention focuses on exercises to convey a tactile sense of space and buildings rather than just a visual rendering of them. The author points out how much vision is attached to our intellectual understanding, rather than a felt sense of a space. In a similar way, soundscapes coax us away from a purely mental world into places where the kinesthetics of sound amplify other gleanings: intuition, perception, eros, dreaming.
Oddly though, the comments McCartney makes about how the success of a recording is a measure of how well the artist knows a space applies also to photography: learning a place over time is the only way to know when the light is just right for that incredible shot. It’s not just drama, like a picture of a fantastic sunset: knowing the place cam convey in a photo what a place is in subtle ways as well.
Mc Cartney speaks of the holding power of a place. I think of the power of silence, and wonder how a recordist would capture it. There is presence in a place where silence has been practiced over the course of centuries; I once visited a gathering place in Phildelphia whose only purpose for 300 years or so has been for gatherings of prayerful silence. It was so deep there, I could fathom no bottom to it. I just wanted to soak it up.
Serpentine California
I hope this comic creator will, or has continued to develop his craft. As comics go, Serpentine California is a beginning effort, but it hints at things it would be interesting to see more fully embodied in the form. What caught my imagination was his evocation of “the elemental passion of small things”, and his hints at the epochal emergence of rocks.
Once in a sharing with others about what peoples’ spiritual experiences were, and where they’ve occurred, it emerged that what everyone shared had happened in nature. Kinne describes a simple kind of spirituality in a quiet way---not a big deal, spiritual.
In psychology, rocks represent the soul, and as I’ve sat with them, I’ve learned this. They’re beings whose marriage with water and with air begets their offspring soil, and dreaming them what comes to me is that their lifetimes are on a scale unimaginable within the skin of a human’s life. Let’s have more comics about rocks!
Monday, November 2, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Reading Response: Weisman and Roston
The Weisman chapter is so troubling. I am so horrified, I wish every plastic consumer was forced to read this. The fact that the plastic is so small as to be called powder-like is so scary...what implications will this have? What it all comes down to his this disgusting consumerism, that is a problem in any country with wealth. We have to stop buying and bring down the demand, it seems as though that is our only option.
The Roston article was very good. It was a little to scientific for my mind at times, but it was enjoyable regardless. I liked reading about Smilley, it was a great way to talk about global warming, by showing just how credible this guy is.
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