Week 4 winter quarter

I began this week happy to be back in the swing of academic life. I successfully found my (secret spot), a spot in a wooded area near my home to quietly observe nature and wild life. I began the exercise in Body and Earth that include doing this nature observation and movement exercises to lessen the distinction between my natural environment and me. I have also been putting to practice the things I learned at the E.A.T. around observing the place where I live and listening to bird language.

While I was in the bay area I took advantage of going to an installation art exhibit at the SF Moma. This provided the perfect space to sketch out some of my ideas for my final art installation. The work of Olafur Eliasson was inspiring as a way of creating interactive and engaging space. He liked to separate naturally occurring phenomenon and put it up in a gallery. For instance he used one room to create an installation of water vapor. He put a light on the vapor as if a piece of sunlight was pouring through the trees onto a waterfalls mist, which created a rainbow of mystery. It was very beautiful land yet very artificial. I prefer to observe the beauty and then create my own interpretation in outside space.

I appreciated his time-lapse photos the most. They documented a spot in Iceland where a valley met with a dark hill. He shot the same photo every hour from before sunrise to the black of evening. It was lovely to watch the subtle variations in light play and experience a day in the life of this valley. I also thought of the environmental implications of documenting a place like Iceland, which will be dramatically effected by climate change.
I plan to use some of this inspiration and metaphor in my work. I also did research on several natural materials art installationists and will be reading their books and watching their movies over the next few weeks. Including the works of Alma Ruiz, Wolfgang Lieb, Andy Goldsworthy and Janine Antoni.

On Wednesday I volunteered for Climate Change day and sat in on multiple workshops relating to making Evergreen carbon neutral and a panel discussion on next steps in making an active climate change movement. While I liked seeing the steps Evergreen is making to reduce carbon I felt like the workshop lacked in looking at the abundant resources for alternative energy the school already has. It made me want to look into doing more green design on campus. The workshop also lacked a strong facilitator so not all voices were heard and a few loud characters dominated the conversation. The panel discussion was inspiring in all the creative ways this diverse group of folks have figured out to reduce there carbon intake and build cleaner energy systems. I was especially inspired by one of the speakers talking about her small business "Terra Gardens" which makes food forests on people's lawns and her environmental despair workshops that got people feeling there feelings of hopelessness about the environment so they could ultimately heal and do better work.

Heron and I had a very successful seminar where we began by doing grounding exercises then did one of the examples in The Earth Path where we discussed our sacred intention. A question came to mind during the seminar, how am I living now to create the change I want to see in the future? This is something I want to continue asking myself as I do my work this quarter.