Parable of the Sower, Rejuvenation

The Ojibwe and Cherokee word Ishkode, means the first spark in your heart. In Sanskrit, the word Prana, means the breath of fire. As difficult as this may be to absorb right now, fire is the transformative element of the Earth, and it is speaking to us. Betsy Damon

With the recent wildfires in Los Angeles County, California, and the inauguration of a Chaos Agent here in the US, 2025 is off to an unnerving start. Our CliFi Reading Group had its first meet up one day after the fires started, discussing Octavia Butler's The Parable of the Sower and her uncanny vision of a world on fire. The Eaton Fire actually burned right up to the writer's burial site in Altadena. Butler not only projected there would be fires influenced by a "pyro" drug starting in the year 2025, but she also envisioned that Southern California would only see rain once every six or seven years. Her bleak speculation was mostly symbolic, and hopefully we will never be "there yet."

Our monthly Soil, Water, and Plastics Dialogues for members is now combined, February through May, with invited speakers to provide inspiration for our annual call for artists focused on plastics in soil, water, and air. The call will launch March 1; look for it. Last month we launched the Soils Turn speakers series and will continue through May with inspiring artists' Zoom presentations. We will also now begin our bi-annual Sustain(ability) and the Art Studio course in March through early June, with a new deadline of March 1. This is an excellent time to invent new strategies for your art practice. see below

In this Chinese New Year of the Snake, it's time to shed old skins and regenerate into new versions of ourselves. Please consider becoming a member to have access to member newsletters with extensive calls for artists and member announcements, our exhibitions and events bi-monthly emails, and access to monthly online events, recordings, etc. There's a level for everyone.

Hang in there! God is change....as per Earthseed.

Patricia Watts, founder/curator

Header Image: Betsy Damon, Fire and Rivers Turned Red, 2024, Hahnemühle papercollage, 17 x 13 inches (original is SOLD, edition of 10 available for purchase)

The Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy in Altadena, California has suffered significant damage due to the fires in Southern California, with a garage and old stone house destroyed and parts of the landscape impacted. Many of their beloved oak trees have survived, a testament to the strength of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) practices that have nurtured the land.

ecoartspace member Betsy Damon has generously offered to sell prints of her work Fire and Rivers Turned Red, 2024 (header image at top of this newsletter) to raise money for Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa. Prints are 17 x 13 inches, edition of 10, and are selling for $450 each. Damon will donate 50% of the proceeds to the Tongva-led organization with the purpose of stewarding the lands of Tovaangar—the traditional native lands of the greater Los Angeles basin. Click the image above to learn more about their mission and programs.

online course

Online Course for Members

NEW DATES March 15, 2025 - June 7, 2025

DEADLINE March 1, 2025

This is our sixth course designed exclusively for ecoartspace members that will prepare artists to develop ways of thinking about sustainability in their practice, both conceptually and physically. Participants will learn how to wildcraft art materials, a practice that requires one to deepen their relationship with land, creativity, and self. Artists will also be invited to think critically about their relationship to place, materiality and voice in a time of socio-ecological destabilization. Through lectures, discussions, creation, and sharing, implications of a bioregional perspectives alongside the function of art to inform will be considered, and what a grounded and meaningful art practice can entail today.

Course led by Anna Chapman, including guest speakers Johanna Törnqvist and Lucia Monge.

Cost is $375 per member, new membership fee can be waved if needed. Approximately 12 participants minimum.

Email info@ecoartspace.org to participate

zoom dialogue

Soils Turn Speaker Series

Asad Raza

Thursday, February 13

United States: 9am HST, 11am PST, Noon MST, 1pm CDT, 2pm EST

Europe: 19:00 GMT, 20:00 CET  Australia: Friday, February 14, 6am AEDT

For the second of five online events presenting the work of artists focused on soils as art, artist Asad Raza will discuss his soil-related works, including a large interactive installation titled Absorption (above), in which cultivators created artificial soil. This conversation will be moderated by co-editor of the upcoming ecoartspace printed book, Soils Turn, Dr. Alexandra Toland, Professor of Arts & Research at Bauhaus University, Weimar, Germany.

This event is free for members + one guest. $5 for non-members. All participants MUST REGISTER.

exhibition

THERE IS NO PLANET B

Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts/Center Space Gallery in Arizona    Through April 27, 2025

Ulrike Arnold, Camilla de Andrade Bianchi, Barbara Boissevain, Cherie Buck-Hutchinson, Heidi Dauphin, Jan Talmadge Davids, Jimmy Fike, Moira Geoffrion, Nancy Gifford, Rachel Ivanyi, Adriene Jenik, Saskia Jordá, Mary Meyer, Alan Petersen, Martina Shenal, Diane Silver, Shawn Skabelund, Beth Ames Swartz, Jen Urso

featured artist

lizzy storm

"I work with earth pigments to explore an environmental consciousness. My practice embodies the elements, inviting materials and time to play a role in my works which rely equally on my body and gestures to take form. I think we are a part of nature looking at itself. The signatures of our bodies, the calendar of the night sky, and the maps of the elements etched in earth and in long-settled places remind me of humans throughout deep time who have conjured ways to communicate their place in the cosmos."  www.lizzystorm.com

store

The New Geologic Epoch &   Basia Irland: Repositories 

The second printing of The New Geologic Epoch has been delivered. We have nine remaining books ready to ship.  

Go to store

announcements

Keep It Together is an environmental site-specific outdoor installation by Tammy West, included in the Art+Climate publication U. S. National Adaptation and Resilience Planning Strategy, U.S. Government Report On-line Publication. January 10, 2025. Above

Rivers Feed the Trees/Aquifer are paintings by Meredith Nemirov, included in the Art+Climate publication U. S. National Adaptation and Resilience Planning Strategy, U.S. Government Report On-line Publication. January 10, 2025.

Imagining A Livable Future with Hannah Chalew is an interview for Artist Mother Podcast, Episode 162. January 16, 2025.

Ohioans are Turning Water Pollution into Oil Paints, is an article on the transformation of Acid Mine Drainage by John Sabraw, Arts Midwest publication online. January 14, 2025.

Sea Change: The Art of Karen Hackenberg is an artist talk in conjunction with her exhibition of the same title currently on view at the Tacoma Art Museum, Washington. January 5, 2025. recording

Members' books available through our website click image

ecoartspace has served as a platform for artists addressing environmental issues since 1999. In 2020, we transitioned to a membership model. Members include artists, scientists, professionals, students, advocates and institutions sharing resources and supporting each other's work. This is an inclusive, non-competitive collaborative environment where we imagine and make real a healthy, equitable, resilient future.

PO Box 5211, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87502