Learning about Environmental Art -by Hannah P.

Coolidge Park "dew"dle. Photo by Hollie Berry 

Hello. On March 12 we experienced something entirely new with the Tucker River Fellows! We talked to an Environmental artist named Ms. Hollie Berry. She shared a slide show with many interesting images about Environmental Art or Ecological Art. This art is created when a person uses materials that come from the environment to create some sort of visual.  For example, this visual could be a sculpture made entirely of twigs or it could be cave paintings. Ms. Berry is known for her “Dewdles”. She arrives to Coolidge Park early in the morning with a paint roller and a sketch of what she wants to draw. She then walks and uses the paint roller to sketch the image in the dew on the grass. The roller absorbs some of the dew, making the image appear.

tools for a "dew"dle. Photo by Hollie Berry

  When making environmental art, there are four major categories it can fall into. They are manipulation, disruption, interaction and intervention. Manipulation is using the environment as your medium, Disruption is taking something manmade and moving it into the environment, Interaction is personal interaction with the environment and is on a smaller scale, and Intervention is a change or proposed change to improve or restore the environment- so intervention art is usually educational, informative and/or restorative. Many projects convey messages about environmental issues and how they can be fixed.

            Though you are creating art, this art typically is not permanent. It could be made out of plants, which decompose or can be washed away by water and will not last. Sometimes the locations are in obscure places that the general public cannot easily access, such as the bottom of the ocean or the desert. This art also is done sometimes on a larger scale, which makes it impossible to be put in a gallery. Parks and art made by interaction or intervention cannot be framed and put on the wall of museums. However, their photos can. Since this type of art is temporary or too large to view, it is photographed in order for the public to view it. 

            My personal favorite environmental art project is using a map to pinpoint the locations of the letters spelling the name of a territory and forming the letters made out of different items from that location. One artist, John Baldessari, found the coordinates of each letter on the map that spelled California and created the letter that was on that coordinate and photographed it. When he placed the photos together, it spelled “California” with different materials. 

Some artworks bring nature into manmade places such as creating a cloud inside a building. 

Nimbus Sankt Peter, 2014, Berndaut Smilde Photo credit: http://www.berndnaut.nl/works.htm

           Ms. Berry blended up some moss and yogurt that she collect from local rocks and created a 'moss paint'. She sent this home with us for us to try and create some 'growing art'. 

Moss and Yogurt paint mixture

Moss paint ready to use

 I hope that you have been inspired to make some art of your own and stay tuned for information on our River Fellows art project that we will be working with Hollie Berry to complete! Stay tuned!