January 16, 2012

Greetings!  

Co-Chair, Environmental Arts Committee 

By Pierre Leichner, Board liaison for Community Environmental Art

Last year I wrote a series of artist newsletters for doctors training to become psychiatrists in Montreal. In the last one I suggested three ideas to guide their future clinical practice.

These principles could also apply to an environmental art practice and guide me on my upcoming project.

1. Do the right Thing! Now!

Whether at work or in our personal lives it has become increasingly easy to become caught up in ways of thinking or behaving that feel natural but are not mindful or respectful of each other or the planet. Most environmental practices strive to reawaken this sensitivity. The materials and the sites chosen are about doing the right thing.

2. Share your skills and knowledge generously!

Avoid competitive situations where appearance, performance and outcome become primary. Corporate working environments and entrepreneurial approaches may foster this. Most environmental art projects are created with wide public involvement in mind. Some projects require the direct participation of the public to make the project feasible and the artists act as teachers as well as co-creators.

3. Look more slowly, look around and in between rather than just directly at things.

What is most interesting and has the most information is not the object or event itself but what surrounds it. What is interesting is not hockey but what is does to people. Forests are wondrous but what is most mysterious is the relationships between the elements, the plants and the animals that inhabit them. Environmental art tends to address these in-between spaces physically and spiritually.

I am heading out for Lille, France next week for a 3-month artist residency that will focus on working with mental health care consumers and professionals on the theme of social isolation in the community.

Pierre Leichner recently participated in an exhibition at the Brittania Community Centre. This exhibition, titled The Grassroots Project, featured eight portraits sculpted with wheat grass.

This project follows his Root Laboratory Project and The Many Faces of Apollo. The roots of the plants become the sculptural forms, the means of expression. In this way nature imitates us in celebrating our community at this time of great ecological concern.

 January's Eco-Arts Salon: 

Our Spring 2012 Artists Have Been Selected!  

After a flurry of submissions, we are excited to announce that our artist presenters for the 2012 Eco-Arts Salons have now been selected. Our diverse line up for the season will include:

Bruce Voyce, A Sculptor of Public Artworks who incorporates plant matter and recycled materials into his large objects. He has participated in the Burnaby Eco-Sculptures;

Behind Open Doors Art Collective,  A group of Performance Artists & scholars of public space who confront the separation of wilderness and the urban environment through direct physical engagements;

Cornelia Hoogland, Poet & Professor at the University of Western Ontario. She incorporates an understanding of place and wild places into her work;

J Peachy, A socially-engaged painter who has recently been named Artist-in-Residence for the Burrard Inlet Marine enhancement Society;

Chloe Bennett, A Landscape Architecture student who focuses on "Habit-art", sculptural habitat for pollinators;

More information will be posted to our website shortly.

Eco-Arts Salons are events that bring those active in creating environmental art together with interested community members, representatives of environmental/community groups interested in using art to advance their social or environmental goals. These events serve as a venue for dialogue and for people from a variety of backgrounds to connect professionally & socially. The salons will be scheduled on the 4th Wednesday of each month, from February- June.