Local Food, Urban Gardening, and Art

The issue of space is always something that I think about whether it is the audience to be reached or the site to be explored.  I feel that land art is a viable art form to express ideas and bring about change.  The natural world must be cultivated into our everyday lives.  I don’t understand how we separate nature from ourselves as something out there.  We are immersed in the natural world, it is all around us and part of us whether we see it or not.  We breathe, hopefully we drink water and we have the ability to feel the solid earth beneath us.  I guess as human beings we feel that nature is something outside us.  We can start to make little discreet changes in our lives by eating better, planting small gardens, and appreciating nature in unnatural spaces. I feel that the 10 Chronologies is an attempt to define what Environmental art is.  Art has the power to promote change.  Hopefully, art can bring about change in the way people consume food and talk about the Earth.

The thing about Environmental art which I find daunting is the lack of funding.  It is hard to sell an idea.  I can see how grant writing is very important for an artist trying to model farming and gardening.  Environmental art seem to be more of a collaboration.  The farm by the freeway helped to challenge the concepts of community art.  I like the idea behind this project to bring about change.  I feel this is another example of how a community can acquire a abandoned space in which to beautify the space, plant a community garden and get volunteers to teach and facilitate workshops. I like the way  Bonnie Ora Sherk's work  incorporates children into the project.  I think that children naturally want to feel part of a community. 

Bonnie Ora Sherk, Crossroads Community, 1974-1980