"Love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust." bell hooks

We've started the New Year with some significant losses. On Christmas Day Tom Lovejoy passed away, and the next day E.O. Wilson, two pioneering biologists who spent decades fighting to protect biodiversity on the planet. We also lost bell hooks and Desmund Tutu, who showed us how love and nonviolent protest could be powerful forces for racial equity. Through their actions, writings and recordings, we will now carry their legacy forward with our words and work as we stand on these incredible shoulders of giants.

For ecoartspace, 2021 was a year of exciting growth. A review of our achievements:

• Membership passed 700 with almost 130 from 26 countries outside the U.S.
  
• 191 members applied to Embodied Forest and 90 artists were selected
• Published a 268 book titled Embodied Forest including ten essays
  
• 11 members were selected for the I AM WATER billboard series in Brooklyn, NY
  
• 3 monthly dialogues focused on Soil, Water and Plastic have evolved into collaborative projects for 2022-2023 (approximately 40 members for each)
• On social media we featured our members daily (365) on Facebook and Instagram, and have tested the waters on LinkedIn and are now posting on Twitter
• 86 blog posts including interviews with our members each month
  
• 20 members featured in the weekly SPOTLIGHT emails highlighting the work of artists dedicated to art and ecology for over a decade, began in August
• Over 80 artists presented their work at our monthly Zoom events including Tree Talk, Art & Agriculture, The Human Animal Connection, Earth Day for Trees, Getting Off the Planet, I AM WATER Assembly, Art & Climate Publications, Some Kind of Nature - Plastics, and EXTRACTION.
• Over 40 artists featured in our Fall Fundraiser Gallery
• 10 new artists books included in the online store
  

If you didn't get a chance to purchase the book Embodied Forest yet, we are taking pre-orders for a second printing. This will be a special edition, hardbound with foil stamp text on the front/back cover and spine. see below

This month we will hold our annual Artist Statement Webinar and Member Tune-Up, and in February, a class on Sustain(ability) & the Art Studio, co-designed with the Center for Art Education and Sustainability (CAES) that includes ecoartspace member presenters. We will also continue with Tree Talk and our monthly members only Plastic Dialogues. see below

With much gratitude for all the creative work our members are doing. Wishing everyone a regenerative 2022!

Patricia Watts, founder

Top Image: ©Hilary Brace, Untitled (2019), charcoal on matte polyester, 8 x 14.25 inches; Lower images from left to right: E.O. Wilson (1929-2021), Tom Lovejoy (1941-2021), Gloria Jean Watkins or bell hooks (1952-2021), and Desmond Tutu (1931- 2021).

PRE-ORDER SECOND EDITION

professional development

Saturday, January 22

United States: 9am PT, 10am MT, 11am CT, 12pm ET

EUROPE: 17:00 GMT

Need to update your artist statement?

For this new year, we invite you to update your artist statements, for both your website and for your ecoartspace profile page. We want our artists to shine online when visitors search through the Member Directory. This is an excellent opportunity to powerfully articulate your vision.

Cara Jordan is an art historian, editor, and educator whose research has focused on contemporary political, activist, and socially engaged public art. She received her Ph.D. from the Graduate Center, CUNY, where she examined Joseph Beuys's concept of social sculpture as a model for socially engaged art.

Feedback from last year's webinar: "definitely worth the money," "very insightful," "terrific workshop."

$20 per person, MEMBERS ONLY, LIVE on Zoom

Online Course for Member Artists

February 5 - May 29, 2022

DEADLINE to register January 15

This course will prepare artists to develop ways of thinking about sustainability in their practice, both conceptually and physically. Artists will reckon with their relationship to place, materiality and voice in a time of socio-ecological destabilization. Together participants will discuss the implications of a bioregional perspective alongside the function of art to inform what a grounded and meaningful art practice can entail today.

Course content includes: sustainability as a stand alone concept, the historical background and function of art, review of artists and concepts including practical strategies and resources, exposure to a range of natural art processes and mediums, circular systems, interbeing, establishing sustainable development needs and goals, developing alliances and an action plan.

All classes will be held on Sundays. The first four sessions will be held in February from 2-4pm ET, the fifth session in March with artists presentations, and the final session in May with roundtable discussions. Participants will create a project during the course.

Cost is $325 per person, scholarships are available.

Email info@ecoartspace.org to participate or for more information.

events

PLASTIC Dialogues

Wednesday, January 12

United States: 12pm PT, 1pm MT, 2pm CT, 3pm ET

Europe: 20:00 GMT  Australia: 7am AEDT, Thursday

MEMBERS ONLY plus one guest per member. All participants MUST REGISTER.

Tree Talk: Artists Speak For Trees

Thursday, January 27

United States: 12pm PT, 1pm MT, 2pm CT, 3pm ET

Europe: 20:00 GMT  Australia: 7am AEDT, Friday

For the January Tree Talk four artists included in Embodied Forest will present their work inspired by trees and forests. Moderated by Sant Khalsa. Co-sponsored by Joshua Tree Center for Photographic Arts

Members and one guest are free. General Public can attend for $10. Capacity is 100 participants. All participants MUST REGISTER.

Images: ©Julia Adzuki, Resonant Bodies, 2015; ©Nancy Azara, Ghost Ship, 2016; ©Toni Gentilli, Medicine Totem (Detail), 2021; ©Deborah Wasserman, Phoenix, 2019

featured ecoartspace artist

Bebonkwe/Jude Norris

A contemporary Plains Cree/Anishnawbe/Metis artist, educated in both Indigenous & Western creative traditions & genres, Bebonkwe employs elements of ‘Native’ material, language, creative practice, and iconography with those of Western technology, art practice & theory, and language. She creates dynamic & signature combinations of the traditional, the organic and the digital. Created from the traditional approach of connection rather than separation, Bebonkwe has taken an empathic approach and relational focus in her use of a variety of media. She employs the unique qualities of traditional & new media technologies to continue the Indigenous embrace of oral storytelling forms and a prayerful approach to creation. Her work draws constantly from a foundation of ancient Aboriginal perspective, yet also pushes the boundaries of Contemporary Western new-media practices.  judenorris.com  winter-brown.com

Image: Response-Hive City is an interactive web-based artwork of non-linear landscapes.

store

Go to store

recent blog post

Vibrant Edens for Us All: Interview with David Allen Burns and Austin Young of Fallen Fruit by Olivia Ann Carye Hallstein

member exhibitions

Cross-Pollination: The Moth Migration Project is a collaborative project celebrating moths as pollinators and metaphors for the exchange of art and ideas, by Hilary Lorenz at Denver Botanic Gardens, York Street Location, Colorado. January 15, 2022 - April 3, 2022. Above

Drawings and Tapestries is a solo exhibition including works by Hilary Brace, at Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, California. January 8 - February 19, 2022.

Earthborn: 30 Seconds to 40 Moons is a two-person exhibition reflecting on life and loss, including Linda Alerwitz, at Primrose Gallery, Springs Preserve, Las Vegas, Nevada. Through January 10, 2022.

Towards a New Animism is a group exhibition responding to the complex relationships between humans and the living planet, including Candace Jensen, at Amos Eno Gallery, Brooklyn, New York. Opening Reception, January 7, 2022, 6-9pm. Through January 30.

Shannon Amidon is a solo exhibition at PDX Insectarium, Portland, Oregon. Through February 25, 2022.

Wetlands Shifting Shorelines is an outdoor print exhibition inspired by vulnerable South Coast wetlands, by Anne Krinsky, installed on the Worthing Seafront Promenade, Worthing, England. Through April 29, 2022.

Eco-Urgency, Now or Never includes two dozen artists that heed the call of the climate crisis including Rachel Frank and Mary Mattingly at Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, New York. Through April 2022.

Pam Longobardi is a solo exhibition of work utilizing found ocean plastics that sheds light on the effects of global consumption on the natural world, at The Baker Museum, Naples, Florida. Through July 24, 2022.

member announcements

Kim Abeles Turns the Climate Crisis Into Eco-art special feature in the New York Times by Jori Finkel on December 9, 2021. Above

Eternal Forest Conversation and Ever Slow Green film screening with Natasha Story and Christop Pohl about reforestation in Auroville, India, curated by Evgenia Emets. January 5, 2021, 16:00 GMT. Eventbrite

The Contemporary Landscape with Brad Temkin is a workshop exploring how to see the landscape as a metaphorical canvas, Santa Fe Workshops, February 14-March 3, 2022, 3:30-5:30pm MT. 

Best Art Exhibitions of 2021 in the New York Times, included Diane Burko: Seeing Climate Change, at The Katzen Arts Center of the American University, Washington, D.C., and Betsy Damon at La Mama Galleria in New York City, published December 7, 2021.

Exploring the Sustainability Challenge: Art and Sustainability is an interview with Patricia Watts, founder and curator of ecoartspace, The Sustainability Laboratory, organized by Elizabeth Thompson. December 14, 2021. Recording.

Earth on the Edge was an exhibition that explored the tipping points of unstoppable climate change, including Marcia Annenberg, Krisanne Baker, and Lois Bender at Ceres Gallery, New York City, December 14-24, 2021. Review of exhibition.

Wu Mali, Mending the Broken Land with Water was the final lecture in the 2021 Sydney Asian Art Series, on October 25, 2021.

Antennae: Spaces and Species issue includes Architectures of becoming-animal by Ron Broglio.

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, and advocates sharing resources and supporting each other's work. This is an inclusive, non-competitive collaborative environment where we can imagine and make real a healthy, equitable, resilient future.

PO Box 5211, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87502