Sept 11 Day of Green Arts Service with the Tucson Green Arts Corps

Join Us!

Sunday, September 11 · 1:00pm - 4:00pm

29th Street Overpass

29th & Colombus in Tucson, Arizona

We will be doing a second clean up of the overpass, and then painting the handrails in preparation for the installation of our mural.

This project is part of a city wide initiative to beautify and unify Tucson neighborhoods by providing Green Arts Solutions to literacy, economic development, crime and apathy. This means nurturing leadership, teamwork, responsibility and cooperation.

To learn more about the Inside the Overpass project, and other neighborhood greening efforts in Tucson visit: http://29thstreetcommunity​mural.blogspot.com/

Green Arts Corps set to Launch in Fall of 2011

Green Arts Corps

Our 2011 - 12 Green Arts Corps Program is scheduled to being Phase One on early Sept. 11 2011 as part of a multi-neighborhood initiative in Tucson, AZ.

This cross -sector approach to meeting community needs through arts based solutions will involve over 30 youth working in collaboration with the Tucson Arts Brigade.

Stay Tuned for details!

Green Studios

by Greg Patch

We can honor the environment with “beautiful” imagery, but, until we begin to use materials that are not toxic to ourselves and the environment we are not realising the energies involved.

Knowing that:

          - most paintings/paints are composed of toxic chemicals, 

             petro-oils, plastics and heavy metals along with 

             preservatives and fungicides like formaldehyde

          - most paintings/paints also produce off gases that

             increase the toxicity of the environment in which they are 

             manufactured and displayed.

          - present labeling of art materials as non-toxic is solely regulated 

            by self interested fine art paint industry representatives.

Please take a few moments to visit my website gallery http://www.greenartstudio.com. The medium I use is beeswax (a sustainable) and pigments carefully selected for their non toxic characteristics. They are “food container safe”. The papers I am using are sustainably harvested plant based materials or recycled cotton fabric. More in depth writing on toxins in the visual arts can be found on my website at  http://www.greenartstudio.com/beeswax.html

This summer I presented these materials in a class for elementary age students at our local community center and to adults at a local art facility. Both groups were excited with the materials and in integrating environmental awareness/lifestyle in their art work.

What are Green Art Jobs?

By Michael B. Schwartz
MBSarts@aol.com

Green Jobs are jobs created as we transition from a carbon-intensive to a renewable energy-producing economy. While people tend to think of them narrowly, as jobs creating, installing and managing energy systems, Green Jobs are much more than that. Think of Green Jobs as any form of livelihood that:

• recycles and reuses, reducing waste and energy use;

• promotes awareness of the relationship of environmental, individual health and our role in protecting both;

• promotes awareness of the current transition to a green economy and engages people in acting on it.

• seeks to be self sustaining and regenerative resulting in long-term job security and wealth..


Through Green Art Jobs, artists can do all these things, integrating community, social and public art with sustainable and regenerative environmental practices, for example:

• Education: Teaching artists can use all art forms to teach green jobs-oriented curriculum.

• Transportation: Percent for arts projects integrate beauty and meaning into the transportation infrastructure through murals, sculpture, environments at transport stations and along highways.

• Energy: Collaborations among experts in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics can produce energy solutions that lift the spirit as well as reduce our carbon footprint.

• Construction: All public construction can include a percent for arts provision, commissioning murals, sculpture and other installations that educate, inspire and beautify.

• Restoration: Greenways, land and water reclamation, parks and wilderness corridors can include elements that integrate nature and culture, encouraging people to be mindful in their relationship to nature.


From retrofitting to new construction, Green Art Jobs will include a variety of enhancements using locally generated renewable resources. Artists working with teams of experts from a variety of sectors will insure successful outcomes. Artists engaged in social and community-based cultural development practices would bring their expertise to the table in providing meaningful and authentic participatory civic engagement.

We are at the dawn of a new era, demanding new inventions. They will emerge from communities that foster, encourage and support creative experimentation and decisions. Moving towards a carbon-neutral economy requires vibrant, and creatively engaged communities. Artists committed to community development have the requisite skills and knowledge to make this real. Green Art Jobs can have immediate impact through the creation of collaborative, community-based, carbon-neutral murals, theater, writing and video projects.

The vast amount of knowledge and expertise found in the environmental, social practice, community arts and education fields have already demonstrated the potential of this work. Connecting these practices to the Green Job movement will result in beautiful and innovative works of functional and interactive arts.

Artists are prepared to work with technical experts to unite their sensibilities and approaches in a support of a green economy.

Gimme Shelter - Opening Reception

As we explore what Green Art Jobs look like check out some of the wonderful work Zoe Cohen and colleages are doing over at the The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. One inspiring project is Gimme Shelter.

The center writes: "Gimme Shelter is a showcase of six temporary, functional woodland shelters located just down the hill from The Schuylkill Center's Main Building, across from the Cattail Pond. The project is meant to build awareness of the applied possibilities and meaning of sustainability and its impact on our lives and our connection to the natural world. The competition encouraged collaboration between artists, designers and architects, in order to demonstrate and promote new, unique, and inspiring approaches to sustainable design and building techniques."

These are great examples of what green-art structures look like, and gives us an idea of how they look in the urban environment - in playgrounds, right of ways, maybe even in place of a parking lot.

Check out Gimme Shelter and see some examples of what happens when artists, architects, landscape architects and enlightened environmental centers collaborate. I call that shovel ready!

Opening Reception:
May 9 / rain or shine

2pm - 5pm

3pm / guided tour by design teams

Free and open to the pulic

What do Green Art Jobs look like?

What do green art jobs look like? I recently finished this cistern mural that was installed by the Water Harvesting Co-Op. The carbon footprint for the mural is offset by the rainwater harvested. Using the right materials, doing the job well the first time is key.

Image ©2009 MichaelBSchwartz

Dear President Obama from Sam Bower

Readers - I find this letter by inspiring and thought I would share it with you. There appears to be a great groundswell of people connecting the dots between the green economy, the arts, community organizing and innovation. Cross sector collaborations are bubbling up in cities around America, the grassroots - so long on the margins are now front and center.

Dear President Obama,

Congratulations on your historic victory. As President of the United States of America you bring a powerful spirit of hope and optimism to a time of great uncertainty about our economy and the environment.

I am releasing this letter into the electronic seas in the hope that it will get forwarded and reposted and somehow make its miraculous way to you so that you will consider the emerging role of ecological art as part of your future vision for this country.

Artists around the world are addressing the needs of communities and ecosystems through collaborative projects with engineers, educators, restoration scientists and park managers. Many of these projects help raise awareness of environmental issues, engage the public in solving problems creatively and beautifully, and reconnect people to local history and restore a sense of place.

One inspiring project in Vintondale, Pennsylvania, for example, by a group called AMD&ART, involved artists, historians, landscape architects and engineers, soil and water restoration specialists, the Bureau of Surface Mining, numerous public and private funding sources, Vista volunteers and hundreds of community members. Inspired by the hope that a polluting liability could be turned into an asset, they transformed a landscape devastated by coal mining into an artful park that connects residents to local mining history, provides recreational facilities and neutralizes the acid mine drainage (AMD) from old mines through a series of attractive limestone-lined ponds and an educational wetlands area.

This combination of function, design, history and culture is part of a rapidly growing movement of artists and their collaborators who are addressing food production, water, erosion, habitat restoration, climate change and countless other environmental and social issues through the arts. The practical hard work and spirited public service you call for can also be fun, beautiful and healing.

Art is a powerful tool for communication and can be highly effective at engaging and educating our children and at encouraging collaboration to address entrenched problems in creative and innovative ways. The following ideas have emerged recently from a wide range of discussions and suggestions from colleagues in the field of ecological art. I ask that you seriously consider them as you look towards renewing a sense of civic pride, public service and ecological stewardship in our country. Art has an important role to play healing our nation and restoring hope.

Here is how you can help:

• Have science based agencies such as the EPA, Department of the Interior, NASA, NOAA, USF&WS and Parks Departments work with the NEA/NEH to create individual artists fellowships, residencies and development of cultural programs at museums and parks that foster eco-art practices.
• Extend cultural diplomacy through the Department of State by appointing eco-ambassadors, cultural emissaries who work through U.S. embassies, to collaborate with their foreign colleagues to develop eco-art projects and bioremediation efforts with local partners across the globe.
• Explore program opportunities within the Department of Education and the National Science Foundation that would allow eco-artists to work with schools to inspire American students to become more excited about the study of science and learn about energy efficiency and green design.
• Incorporate eco-art into the work of the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps to advance a widespread 21st century WPA-style works program to address urgent infrastructure and restoration needs in informative and aesthetic ways.
• Expand your plan to create new green collar jobs to include ecological artists and encourage the formation of collaborative and multidisciplinary teams that can approach old problems in new and more broadly effective ways.

The challenging path ahead does not have to emerge out of fear or desperation. Indeed, if we are to truly thrive and heal our nation and the Earth, it cannot. Please consider this as you set your priorities for the next four years and beyond. A more sustainable future must be effective and practical as well as delicious and inspiring. That's ecological art and we need more of it.

Many of my colleagues and countless artists and restoration specialists across the US and around the world would love to help with this. Are you ready to work with us?

Respectfully,

Sam Bower
Executive Director
http://greenmuseum.org

Mission: greenmuseum.org helps people create, present and appreciate art that heals our relationship with the natural world.