MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

December 11, 2023

This week we recognize artist  John Roloff John Roloff  and    his decades-long investigation of geologic time, sites, and other natural phenomena that began in the late 1960’s, combining poetics and site-specific relationships between material, concept and performance in the domains of ecology, architecture, ceramics, industry, metabolic systems and history.

Fired and Glazed Earth Piece, 1979 (above) is the first larger environmental performance/ kiln work after a series of smaller experimental kilns and firing projects. This work had two stages, the first of purely firing the existing earth in-situ. The second state, is after a second firing and the layered placement of all powdered glaze materials available at the Notre Dame ceramic facility were fused in-situ. In both cases the burner was placed in one end of the kiln, and left to reach a unknown temperature, the purpose being to let the kiln dynamics and natural forces (to the extent possible) determine the state of fusion of the materials, not a pre-determined formula or goal.The work also related to the earthworks projects done by artists of the 1960's and 1970's. Echoing volcanic processes, such as contact metamorphism where a heat source (plutonic intrusion, lava flow, etc) would come into contact with the surrounding native rock and create an altered zone of materials, potential metamorphic facies change in minerology as well as color and texture. The illumination of the ceramic fiber blanket by the heat of the firing, sustaining the kilns ship form at night, became important in developing the spectacle/kiln image dynamic of later projects.

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Fragment: The Hidden Sea (Island of Refuge), 1993 (above) is a 35 foot long "artificial" sectioned rock outcrop whose polished front facade is activated by intermittent and distributed seepages of water. An illusion of the art work is that the water is flowing "uphill." The main structure is set into a series of wave-like grass berms, the berms and structure provide sitting and relaxing space for the students of the surrounding housing complex.

"Fragment..." An assemblage of geologic materials and concepts adrift as if broken from a larger system floating in what is a geologically complex and fragmented terrain as in the Franciscan and Great Valley rock sequences that make up much of Western California. These ‘suspect terrains,’ are geologic progressions of ancient sea floor deposited against the original North American continent by accretion processes generated by plate tectonics and oceanic sea-floor spreading over millions of years.

"...(Island of Refuge)" An interactive topography: an ‘outcrop’ sited in a communal terrain, berms for relaxing and reading, the back slope for viewing activities on the adjacent grass expanse, the slow drip of the front facade inviting investigation of its origin and secrets.

"...The Hidden Sea..." A sea that resides in the memory of all sediments deposited in marine and estuarine environments. A sea that once lapped shorelines, that can now only be imagined. A sea that exists within the vast expanses of stratified material making up sedimentary landscapes, its currents and subtle subcurrents persisting in the orientation and gradients of minute lithified particles that drifted and settled to the bottom of the deep oceans. The variable seepage of water from the front facade of Fragment: The Hidden Sea (Island of Refuge) provides a living reminder of these themes, dampening the fossil-like inclusions and waveform strata.

Stratigraphic Column I,    2002  (above) is composed of alternating images taken of Cambrian and Ordovician Era carbonate marine sediments from the Panamint Mountains in Death Valley, California and contemporary buildings (Holocene era) in the process of being deconstructed or having undergone conflagration in northern California. The images have been digitally stretched to form strata-like structures that recompose the column into a sequence of non-conformities and displacement in geologic time and distance. This meta-order examines an intermingling of Holocene and Paleozoic structures over 300 million years and 500 miles (800 kilometers) apart. The geographic displacement from Death Valley to Oakland is on the scale of plate tectonics or large strike/slip or transform fault systems such as the San Andreas Fault in western California. The practice of architecture often brings together materials from even greater distances and time frames for aesthetic, design or structural reasons.

Protogaea Civica II (Franciscan Formation/San Francisco, CA), 2005 (above) is the second and largest of three variations of the Geology Flag Project, a system of symbolic demarcation of site-specific geologic structures and materials using flags. This version uses 19 flag poles at the San Francisco Civic Center Plaza. The flags emblematically identify the Civic Center’s site in relationship to the Franciscan Formation, the bedrock beneath the larger Bay Area, east of the San Andreas Fault. The Civic Center, in geologic terms, rests unconformably (a time gap in deposition) on part of the Franciscan called the Alcatraz Terrane, near its western edge. The complete set of flags are envisioned as a comprehensive system of geo-taxonomy, an indexing and revealing of the geologic materials and structures beneath any given site, and, as flags flying above civic sites, such as the San Francisco Civic Center, staking a claim for the “nationhood” of nature and natural systems. The flags are political, national and regional history flags.

The Sea Within the Land, 1980-2019 (below) are images from Roloff's retrospective exhibition at Anglim Gilbert Gallery in San Francisco, presenting selected kiln documentation, photographic installations, and recent ceramic ships. Utilizing a cross-disciplinary approach to ceramics and performance, his work incorporates the earth and life sciences with architectural and historical elements. The exhibition incorporated a view of the landscape where, in the context of geologic time, the land and sea are mutable, interdependent and may be construed as forms of each other. The processes of erosion and deposition being cyclical inversions of each other, a continuum of land and sea interaction through which new land is constantly being formed. In this fundamental way, land/seascapes are constructed of previous land/seascapes each carrying the blueprint of their ancestor.

John Roloff      is a visual artist who works conceptually with site, process and natural systems. He is known for his ceramic works and outdoor kiln/furnace projects done from the 1970’s into the 1990’s, as well as other large-scale environmental projects, gallery installations and objects investigating geologic and natural phenomena. Based on an extensive background and ongoing research in the earth sciences, he works from geochemical and global metabolic perspectives. The ship is a central image of his work, metaphorically evoking psychological and transformative processes of the sea and land in geologic and contemporary time. He studied geology at UC Davis, Davis, CA with Professor Eldridge Moores and others during the formative days of plate tectonics in the late-1960’s. He studied with Louis Marak and received a master’s degree in art in 1973 from CSU Humboldt. In addition to numerous environmental, site-specific installations in the US, Canada and Europe, his work has been included in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, UC Berkeley Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian Institution, Photoscene Cologne and the Venice Architectural and Art Biennales, The Snow Show in Kemi, Finland and Artlantic: wonder, Atlantic City, New Jersey. Art works in the public realm that explore geologic and related concepts can be found at sites such as: Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco, CA, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, I-5 Colonnade Park, Seattle, WA and Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. He has received three artist’s visual arts fellowships from the NEA, a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, a California Arts Council grant for visual artists and a Bernard Osher Fellowship at the Exploratorium, San Francisco, CA. He is Professor Emeritus of Sculpture/Ceramics at the San Francisco Art Institute. www.johnroloff.com

Featured images (top to bottom): ©John Roloff, Fired and Glazed Earth Piece, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN / 1979, images: Pre-fireing, 12 ft long, fire brick, ceramic fiber blanket, metal tubing, burner, propane, earth and 12 ft long, fire brick, fused and glazed earth beneath kiln / second firing of kiln; Fragment: The Hidden Sea (Island of Refuge) is a35 ft. long, cement, artificial stone, timed water-seepage system, roses, landscaping, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 1993;Stratigraphic Column I, 2002, an extension of Roloff's Landscape Projection (for an Unknown Window) series, 1998-2001;Protogaea Civica II (Franciscan Formation/San Francisco, CA) 2005, 19 flag poles at the San Francisco Civic Center Plaza as part of the 2005, part of the exhibition, High Five, presented in conjunction with the opening of the new DeYoung Art Museum in Golden Gate Park;The Sea Within the Land 1980-2019; Portrait of the artist.

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

December 4, 2023

This week we recognize artist  Felicia Young, and  her collaborative community-based projects to address environmental challenges through the arts, as the founder of  Earth Celebrations, a non-profit organization established in 1991.

Young created the Trash Monster for Earth Day in 1990 (above), a 50-foot long dragon covered in soda cans, plastics bottles, and a tail of discarded New York Times papers. Volunteers from throughout the city collected cans for the monster and helped in its creation over several weeks. It was also featured in the Earth Day Parade at One World Trade Center 1992-1995. Volunteers operated the dragon by walking under the heaps of trash, their heads popping out like vertebrae. At the end of the parade the volunteers emerged and slayed the dragon, cutting off the cans, plastic bottles and paper tail. It was then separated in the ritual of recycling and offered to the We Can Recycling Center for recycling.

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The Rites of Spring, Procession to Save Our Gardens, 1991-2005 (above) was a collaborative art and environmental action project directed by Young, to build a community effort to preserve the gardens on the Lower East Side that were threatened with destruction by proposed development plans.Over many months local residents participated in workshops to create visual art, giant puppets, and performances of music, dance, theater and poetry, presented in a culminating day-long procession to Save Our Gardens, visiting the network of over 50 community gardens. The procession grew into an ongoing program with the founding of Earth Celebrations, dedicated to engaging communities to generate ecological change through the arts. The project continued for fifteen years with annual pageants, community art-making workshops and a grassroots coalition effort that led to the preservation of hundreds community gardens throughout New York City.

Earth Celebrations’ Hudson River Restoration Project & Pageant, 2009-2012 (above) engaged residents, youth, students, schools and local river, environmental, cultural and community organizations in a collaborative arts and action project on restoration efforts of the Hudson River Estuary and impacts of climate on the waterfront in Lower Manhattan. Months of workshops engaged residents, youth, schools, community centers and organizations to collaborate with Earth Celebrations’ artists-in-residence and environmental experts exploring the waterfront sites and their related environmental programs and climate mitigation initiatives. Workshops culminated in a co-created theatrical pageant, featuring a 5 hour procession of visual art, giant puppets and costumes with 13 site performances celebrating the restoration initiatives along the downtown section of the Hudson River Park. Oyster planting, marine labs, native river grass, species of plants and animals, and boating programs were celebrated while addressing sea level rise, flooding and climate challenges impacting the waterfront.

The Vaigai River Restoration Pageant & Project, 2014-2016 (above) was a social action art initiative and an international collaborative effort to restore the Vaigai River in Madurai, South India. The River was in a severe environmental crisis due to pollution, waste dumping, and the drying effects of extreme climate. The project applied the arts to mobilize community action and build partnerships among diverse groups and people throughout the city, working together to develop and implement solutions. Young activated cultural strategies and methodology to engage diverse sectors throughout the City, to work collaboratively, exploring how pollution and climate are impacting the river. Over 50 partners throughout the city including local organizations worked on critical environmental and health programs, rural and urban neighborhood associations, religious centers, women’s empowerment groups, academic and cultural institutions, government officials, farmers and people living in poverty along the riverbank. Research and data were then interpreted by community participants into visual art and performances for a culminating public Vaigai River Restoration Pageant on May 12, 2015. A procession of giant mobile sculptures, spectacular costumes, and musical bands with performances at significant sites along the route followed the river bank. The project catalyzed on-going engagement and actions with river clean ups, and the Vaigai River Restoration Trust was established along with an official panel appointed by the Mayor of Madurai. In 2018, Madurai was identified by the Smart Cities Council of India to receive 1 billion rupees for the Vaigai River Restoration implementation.

Earth Celebrations’ Ecological City - Art & Climate Solutions Action Project, 2017 - present (below) applies the arts to build community, collaboration and action on climate solution initiatives to mitigate climate change including impacts of flooding, carbon pollution and the consequences of sea-level rise throughout the network of community gardens, neighborhood and waterfront on the Lower East Side of New York City. Gardeners, artists, residents, youth and over 50 community partner organizations collaborate through 9 months of creative engagement, partnership building, and Art & Climate Solutions Workshops, to develop visual art and performances exploring local sustainability sites and their climate solution initiatives. The community presents their inspiring sustainable urban ecosystem and artistic works created through the workshops in the culminating Ecological City: Procession for Climate Solutions. The co-created theatrical pageant features a spectacular procession of visual art with 21 site performances of dance, theater, music and poetry, celebrating local climate solutions embedded throughout the neighborhood. Ecological City provides an inspiring creative, collaborative and public platform to amplify and build action on local environmental challenges and solutions.

Felicia Young   is an artist and the Founder and Executive Director of Earth Celebrations, a non-profit organization since 1991, engaging communities to generate ecological and social change through the arts. For the past 32 years she has applied the arts to build community, collaboration and action on climate change, water quality, river restoration, waste management, and the preservation of species, habitats, nature, gardens, parks, and a healthy urban environment. Her collaborative arts projects build partnerships with organizations, academic institutions, government agencies, and residents to work together to achieve common goals and ecological policy and social change. As a native 3rd generation New Yorker, Young has deep roots in the City of New York, as well as much inspiration from the festivals, ceremonies, and mythic dramas from her mother’s native land of India. Young has also developed a course "Art, Ecology and Community," for Princeton University. She shares these cultural strategies as a guest speaker on urban sustainability and artistic activism at numerous schools and colleges including New York University, Columbia University, School of Visual Arts, New School/Parsons and Hunter College. Young has BA in Art History from Skidmore College and a MA degree in Performance Studies from New York University.  earthcelebrations.com

Featured images (top to bottom): ©Felicia Young, Trash Monster: Create, Parade & Recycle, 1990-1995, also performed Earth Day New York & World Trade Trade Center, LMCC, 1992-1995; Hudson River Restoration Pageant, 2008-2012, downtown section of the Hudson River Park, Lower Manhattan, World Financial Center to Gansevoort Street; Vaigai River Restoration Pageant & Project (2014-2016), Madurai, South India; Ecological City, Art & Climate Solutions Action Project, 2018-Present, Lower East Side, New York City, Gardens to Waterfront; portrait of the artist.

Geo Crumbs: Making the Invisible Visible


by Michelle Sirois Silver

Artivist: Natalya Khorover

“What does one year of collecting trash look like?”

Geo Crumbs: Making the Invisible Visible (2023) is Natalya Khorover’s most personal installation to date. Bits and pieces of trash were collected over a year of walking along a favorite footpath in a forest. These geo crumbs of trash are cast in resin and installed in a small, abandoned building steps away from the footpath for people to see just how many crumbs they may have left behind on their walks.

An interactive component is a QR code created by the artist. Encased in resin, it hangs on one of the walls. When scanned a description of the concept for the installation pops up. Followed by a series of questions: Do you know about climate change? Do you know what plalking is and do you do it? Can you tell me something about the history of the forest you are hiking through? They can then sign a virtual guest book and leave a message for the artist.  

This well-traveled footpath is where Natalya walks her dog and where she collects trash crumbs discarded by walkers, hikers, and cyclists. She describes it as her little patch of forest, “Obviously it’s not mine but it’s where I walk my dog almost every day. It’s a beautiful patch of nature with mature maple and oak trees. A stream runs through it. When I find trash on the ground it breaks my heart. I want to clean it up.”

Calls to action come in many ways. Natalya comments that when one person picks up one piece of trash and puts it into the trash receptacle it saves that piece from being washed by the rain into the water way and flowing out into the ocean where eventually a fish will eat it. “It’s one small act that all of us can do,” she says.

The concept for Geo Crumbs came about organically so to speak. From September 2022 until September 2023, Natalya picked up pieces of plastic, glass, bits of metal, batteries, charging cables, lights from bicycles, condom wrappers, and lace underwear. As well as tennis balls, dog balls, golf balls, and tees.

The concept for the installation is an intuitive process. “In September 2022 when I first began picking up the trash along the footpath, instead of putting it into the trash receptacle I felt compelled to collect it. I would bring it home, wash, sort, and catalog it. I didn’t throw anything out. At the time I wasn’t sure why.”

Creating spaces for conversations about single use plastic is an underpinning for the artivism that Natalya engages with. The walks in the forest offered her the opportunity for contemplation and creative problem solving. It was during her dog walks that she routinely walked by an abandoned building. And, it was here she saw the opportunity to create an installation that would draw attention to the trash that she had collected along the path.

To prepare the trash for the installation it is cast in resin to prevent further harm. The resin casting is a transformative process turning the bits of trash into precious shiny objects. Installed in the secret gallery, the transformed geo crumbs have the potential to draw attention and generate conversations about the responsibilities we have for objects and the things we may unknowingly leave behind.

Our conversation broadens as we discuss her decision to work with resin. Intrigued by resin she also worried about it because it’s a fossil fuel product.  We talked about why her work requires a bonding element. Whether it’s polyester thread or acrylic paint. As far as she is concerned, they all have their detriment to the Anthropocene epoch. She concludes, “These are choices I must make.” 

Some of the work is suspended with wires. Other pieces are placed on the floor and create an unexpected mosaic effect. When the exhibition ends everything will be removed. It’s Natalya’s intention to cause no harm to the site. Everything will be taken away and exhibited again or reused to create new works.

“I want visitors to initially be attracted to the beauty of the installation but as they get closer, I want them to realize that it’s trash. I want them to be surprised. And I want them to think about how they may have contributed to the installation by leaving a geo crumb behind.”

Geo Crumbs: Making the Invisible Visible. The year of collecting trash is currently on display in the secret gallery somewhere in New York state (November 2023 – Winter 2024).  

Installation:  40.96593° N, 73.74636° W

Natalya Khorover is an artivist based in New York state. She describes the work she makes as environmental art that uses the discarded materials she finds within those environments. “Everything I make is made with repurposed materials. Specifically single use plastics. This is the core of my art practice.” Community participation in the form of workshops is a key underpinning for her installations with the intention to empower participants to engage in activism in actionable ways. “I’m compelled to draw people’s attention to single use plastics. And, the way I know how is to use the plastic in my art in ways that make it unrecognizable.  When someone first sees my work, they are drawn to the imagery, color, and texture. When they lean in, they pause and ask, ‘What’s that made from?’ This is where the conversation about single use plastic often begins.” Khorover is the founder of the Repurposer Collective. A community for creatives concerned about the environment and passionate about exploring repurposed materials in art. In 2023 Natalya was the teaching artist in residence at the Hudson River Museum. She earned her BFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, and is a member of Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA), Surface Design Association (SDA), the Katonah Museum Artist Association (KMAA), and the Silvermine Guild of Artists. In 2022, she created a site-specific installation from single-use plastic waste for The Social Fabric, an exhibition at ArtsWestchester in White Plains, NY. Her work has also been exhibited at the Dairy Barn’s biennial Quilt National (2021, 2017, 2013), the Visions Museum of Textile Art in San Diego, CA, The Other Art Fair in Brooklyn, NY, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show.

Photographs by Ana Szilagyi 

December 2023 e-Newsletter for subscribers is here

Deep Horizons: A Multisensory Archive of Ecological Affects and Prospects

The specifics of ecological destruction often take a cruel turn, affecting those who can least resist its impacts and who are least responsible for it. Deep Horizons: A Multisensory Archive of Ecological Affects and Prospects gathers contributions from multiple disciplines to investigate intersectional questions of how the changing planet affects specific peoples, communities, wildlife species, and ecosystems in varying and inequitable ways. A multisensory, artistic-archival supplement to the University of Colorado Boulder’s 2020-2022 Mellon Sawyer Environmental Futures Project, the volume enriches current conversations by bridging the environmental humanities and affect theory with insights from Native and Indigenous philosophies. It highlights artistic practices that make legible the long-term durational effects of ecological catastrophe, inviting readers and viewers to consider the emotional resonance of poems, nonfiction texts, sound-texts, photographs, and other artworks that grapple with the less visible loss and prospects of environmental transformation. 

Learn more about the book, which includes work by Erika Osborne, here

Entanglement and the Inner Feminine as Artistic Practice

Hillary Irene Johnson | October 19, 2023 on MAHB

Now that I am deep into the final year of my MFA in Photography at Columbia College Chicago, I find I’m reflecting on the problematic nature, the constraining potential of what the rational, well-ordered, intellectual, academic, rectilinear, traditionally masculine modes of thinking, doing and making. I am also researching models of success both out in the world and from an interior perspective. I wonder how I (and others if they like) might reframe experience and path from these masculine modes and views of success to those more feminine in nature, more internal processes, heroine’s journeys of transformation for the good of myself, for the good of all beings. 

I’m thinking a lot about entanglement, of our collective dilemmas and how we might move forward, borrowing Donna Harroway’s notion of a new period we have the potential to enter into, what she calls the Chthulucene. In her book, Staying with the Trouble (1), she writes:

“Chthulucene is a simple word. It is a compound of two Greek roots (khthôn and kainos) that together name a kind of timeplace for learning to stay with the trouble of living and dying in response-ability on a damaged earth. Kainos means now, a time of beginnings, a time for ongoing, for freshness. Nothing in kainos must mean conventional pasts, presents, or futures. There is nothing in times of beginnings that insists on wiping out what has come before, or, indeed, wiping out what comes after. Kainos can be full of inheritances, of remembering, and full of comings, of nurturing what might still be. I hear kainos in the sense of thick, ongoing presence, with hyphae infusing all sorts of temporalities and materialities.”

Continue reading on MAHB here

The UN/making Network: An Interdisciplinary Artist-run Platform that Celebrates the UN/making of Harm

Jill Price | September 28, 2023

Arising out of personal observations about how the art world contributes to the Anthropocene, which Dr. Natalie Loveless from the University of Alberta defines as a colonial, industrial capitalist, patriarchal and petrol phenomenon that I would add is made exponential by the globalization of Western thought that privileges economic growth and individual wealth over ecological justice and social equity, the UN/making Network is an assemblage of online platforms that support and promote interdisciplinary art forms that push beyond the production of objects for commodification and consumption and uptake methods of performativity to assist in the care and repair of ecological sites and spaces that support human and more-than-human well-being. 

Formulated as a research-creation Ph.D. project in which I was interested in discovering and developing ways in which to unmake myself from systems of harm as a consumer and a maker, as well as transition my personal practice away from the narrative towards that which could be considered performative, preventative or reparative, the UN/making Network is Inspired by other artivist or cultural websites that work to share eco-ethical mandates, resources, and outcomes, and build a community of like-minded thinkers and doers. Temporarily housed under www.jillpricestudios.ca, the UN/making Network currently exists as a series of web pages that:

Continue reading on MAHB here

Lucia Monge Collaborates With Living Organisms for While a Leaf Breathes (Mientras una Hoja Respira)

The ArtYard exhibition explores plant respiration as a metaphor for life and vulnerability. On view through January 28 in Frenchtown, New Jersey.

ArtYard November 8, 2023

To create works for While a Leaf Breathes (Mientras una Hoja Respira), artist Lucia Monge turned to plants, mushrooms, bacteria, and other living organisms as collaborators. 

“The materials in my works are prepared, fermented, cooked, and cultivated,” Monge says. “It is hard and also beautiful to adapt to another species’ temporality. It is important for me to not only talk about interspecies relationships but to try to meet another species halfway and to have my practice be guided through their cycles, time, and urgencies.”

The exhibition explores stomata — the pores through which plants breathe. Exchanging air with the environment is key to the photosynthetic process of plants. However, every time these pores open to breathe, the plant risks losing water. There is vulnerability in opening up, and loss and nourishment must be balanced in order to stay alive.

Continue reading at Hyperallergic here

November 2023 e-Newsletter for subscribers is here

Photo: A Oyster Mushroom fruits through one of Carol Padberg’s handwoven wearable sculptures.

Carol Padberg's fully integrated art and educational practice

Olivia Ann Carye Hallstein

Carol Padberg lives her practice. Through a combination of material work creation and a back-to-the-land, spiritually integrated lifestyle, the artist/educator is fully entrenched in her mission. Padberg was the founder of the low residency Nomad MFA program through the Hartford Art School at University of Hartford (2015) and along with Mary Mattingly, appling the Nomad curricular model also recently founded the Confluence MFA concentration (2022) at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. This unique regenerative culture program integrates multiple sites in the Americas with a focus on both ecology and community. View her TED talk here for more information: Radical: Art, Education and Ecology | Carol Padberg | TEDxUniversityofHartford

Interview

Carol, a word that comes to mind when exploring your work is: connection. Whether the connection is between fiber and living organisms and/or people and the planet, the weavings you present seem to be both literal and abstract manifestations of this interconnectedness. What drives the dedication to develop and promote these connections?

We are living in a time that has been devastated by the myth of separability. Yet we are all connected. My efforts in raising sheep and weaving, my commitment to work with mycelia and indigo, all of it is driven by the need to return to non-extractive economies, ancestral practices, and a direct, interspecies connection to the web of life. So, yes, ‘connection’ is a key concept for me. It is essential to understand this word within the ecological, political and cultural context of this destructive myth of separability. Another way the idea of connection shows up in my work is that the mycelial sculptures I make decompose back into the soil of the dye gardens. This way the life cycle of the art is directly connected to the life cycles of the planet.

Photo: A slug eats one of Carol Padberg’s decomposing mycelial sculptures, accelerating the release of nutrients and mycelia back to the soil (2018).

A huge aspect of challenging separability and a necessity in connection is intimacy. In “Meeting Mycelia” (2019) and the “Mycelial Muse Kit” (2022) you explore deep emotional and nurturing relationships with natural growth and cycles. How does the relationship between human and earth develop through these processes?

A human being is an interspecies being. We have more non-human DNA in our bodies than human DNA. This is thanks to the bacterial and fungal communities that keep us healthy in our gut, on our skin and in ways we have not yet scientifically named. So, interspecies intimacy is “built-in” to mammals like us. When you consider this deep interspecies reality, it can be surprising that we need to pause to remember this. Yet here we are, with our idea of individuality, which is a biological fallacy. I want to trouble this idea of ‘appreciating nature’ by completely breaking down the human/nature binary. We must undo this idea that we are separate from nature. Art that creates a direct experience of our skin’s mycelial community to the mycelial community of the forest floor is not only poetic, but useful. This art has the ability to remind us to listen with our cells, loosen our grasp on individual selfhood and build new neural pathways that may foster better ways of knowing.

Photo: Carol Padberg's spun wool from her sheep, created on a 17th century walking wheel.

And you practice what you preach: your regenerative practice has expanded beyond artistic production and has become a way of life for you at the Nook Farm House. What role does place hold in your socially-engaged environmental art practice?

In the past sixteen months I moved from Nook Farm House on the east coast of Turtle Island to Tewa land in the Southwestern region, to bring the Confluence curriculum to the University of New Mexico. All last year I felt bereft leaving Nook Farm House in Hartford, and yet it continues in new forms. Now I live on a farm in Northern New Mexico where I have a workshare arrangement in exchange for lodging. I raise wool sheep here and they graze on the grasses of this apple orchard. I also grow indigo to contribute to the local fibershed. I am fortunate to live in an area with abundant textile traditions: from the Pueblo peoples, the Diné, and the descendants of Hispanic settlers. I am a student of this place: observing, listening and growing as I adapt. And I am being shaped by the tenacious and fragile high desert. In my mycelial practices I have begun working with the Oyster Mushrooms I meet in the Jemez Mountains. And I am also beginning a project that considers the Questa Mine Superfund site and questions conventional ideas about remediation. As most of the materials I use as an artist come from the place where I live, a change in location brings new possibilities and requires adding new skills. So I am in a time of adaptation, and this is invigorating.

Photo: A participant in a Meeting Mycelia workshop feeling the mycelia of fruiting Oyster Mushrooms through his eyelids (2020)

In the spirit of creating this bridge, you have been incorporating new growth (mycelia) into textiles in recent years. How do these living woven cloths relate meaning to this inseparability?

This is an ontological question, and by that I mean it relates to how we know what is. Let’s get mystical for a moment… One of the ways I walk in the world is as an animist who participates in old ways that have been carried down from my deepest human ancestors. I am from descendants of settler colonists on both sides of my family. But before we were colonized and trained into colonialism, we were living in Northern Europe and practicing a belief system in which weaving was world making. The three fates wove past, present and future. By collaborating with Oyster mushroom mycelia, who create by metabolizing rotting wood, I am considering how to process my family history and the trauma we have created in the world. How do we digest this? I practice spinning and weaving on ancestral wheels and looms as a way to reconnect with my heritage and then I work with mycelia because they are the best teachers of metabolization. How do we weave a future from this time period we have been born into? I believe textiles and mycelia hold clues.

Photo: Sheep grazing near Carol Padberg’s Ger (Yurt) on the Northern New Mexico apple orchard where she lives, October 2023.

Photo: A selection from the book Otra Visión: Mujeres Que Tejen, created by students in the Confluence MFA in collaboration with the Mujeres Que Tejen Weaving Collective in Valle de Teotitlán, Oaxaca, México, 2023.

Your work is both in practice and in education. The MFA programs you have developed have been called “the MFA of the future”. What inspired you to develop these novel models?

I deeply believe in the power of education to change lives and shape our world for the better. A democracy requires relevant, varied, and thoughtful educational institutions. In terms of the Confluence MFA, we are proud to be part of a state university that serves a majority POC student body. The leadership at the University of New Mexico is forward thinking, and adaptive to the changing conditions we are living in. Are we the MFA of the future? I think when people tell us that, what they are noticing is that we are purpose-driven, holistic, and that we have a low-residency format that is practical for working adults. An MFA dedicated to regenerative culture is a niche MFA. It serves a very specific need. There is no one MFA for the future, thank goodness. As the program will soon be ten years old, I would say it is going well. We are continuing to evolve a curriculum that gives students an expanded toolkit with which to address the world’s most complex issues. We attempt to do this in a way that is trauma-informed, liberatory and engaged. Is it easy work? No. Is it meaningful? Absolutely!

Confluence MFA Online Openhouse, info here.

Photo: MFA students with teaching artists Mark Dion and Christy Gast in the Everglades, Florida, 2018.

Thank you, Carol, for expanding our horizons with your ideas and practice!