The Earth Project

Sunday, March 28, 2010

The Earth Project

The Earth Project is a site featuring a variety of public art projects created by my students at Florida State University. The courses, Art and Ecology and The Earth Project, are concerned with learning about and working in the local environment. They are comprised of three elements: service projects, art making and field trips with lectures. We have lectures from professionals that include environmentalists, naturalists, artists, writers, activists and educators in places like Turkey Hill Farms, Wakulla Springs, Marine Specimen Lab and Tallahassee Museum. We create collaborative and individual art projects in places like Millstone Plantation, Wakulla Springs, Tallahassee Museum and Paul Rutkovsky's Green Alley. Our service projects such as cleaning in and around sink holes are aimed to have direct positive impact in the Wakulla Springs Basin area. Although the courses have a focus on Art and Biology, having these backgrounds are not essential to fully participate in the course.
The Earth project course received a grant from The Center for Leadership and Civic Education at FSU. Also included are images from a Soft Sculpture class that had Ecological inspired projects.

Objectives of the course:

-Learn about Local and World Wide ecological Issues
with lectures from artists, biologists, activists, environmentalists and writers

-Find out what Scientists and Artists are doing in response
with films, books, art shows, and lectures and taking educational field trips

-Participate in individual and collaborative service projects and Art making
by creating art installations, doing service projects that directly impact the health of natural areas.

Picture plants from Soft Sculpture

After a lecture from FSU Ecology Science professor Thomas Miller who spoke to the class about the rare carnivorous plant bog in the area, we recreated a bog with Soft sculpture with materials that were collected from Good Cents (Good Will thrift store). It was on exhibition for Rare Plant Society's meeting and reception in the King building at FSU. 3/2018

The Procession of Strange and Extinct

For the Annual Wakulla Wildlife Festival, the soft sculpture class created a procession of a variety of

animals that are invented, rare and extinct. This is a Mastodon was at the center of the procession. 5/2017

After a lecture from the FSU Marine Lab's Dr. Sandra Brooke about Coral Reef's

The Soft Sculpture Class made a reef made or recycled and second hand materials for the Maine lab's annual open house.

Earth Mandala

The Mandala project was inspired by the work of Andy Goldsworthy, an environmental artist who makes site specific installations using the natural materials of the given area. In class we saw the film Rivers and Tides, a documentary about him.

For the Weavers Festival the students made a large Mandala on top of one of the hills near the lake. The day before materials were gathers and stored. The day of the event they began designing and placing the materials in a beautiful design that could be seen from all over the plantation. The public was welcome to participate.

Earth Mandala at Millstone Planation

Millstone Plantation of Preservation is a beautiful pristine location that is located about 10 miles north of Tallahassee. The institute provides unique artistic, historical and scientific educational and cultural opportunities to the area. There are 100 acres that contain rolling green hills dotted with live oak tress, sheep and llamas and two strong willed geese. There is also a beautiful lake there. Cynthia Hollis, the event coordinator
invited my students to do a project there for the Weavers Festival that happened last November.

Florida Panther Birthday Party at the Tallahassee Museum

On April 10 The Earth Project was involved in a Birthday Party Project for two endangered Florida panthers that turned ten years old. Students created a large non-toxic papier mache birthday cake in which bits of fresh deer meat and catnip were hidden. In front of a crowd of about 100 people the cats slowly destroyed the cake. The students also created "enrichments", treats that appeal to the wild nature of the animals. One student made a book about Panthers to hand out at the event. Some enrichments with allocated for bears, bobcats and red wolves.

The project is meant to raise awareness of endangered state of Florida Panthers while giving the viewer opportunity to experience the Florida Panther ferocious playful nature.

River of Glass

"The River of Glass" was a project that studied and benefited Wakulla Springs, a river inside the Wakulla Springs State Park which is 20 miles south of Tallahassee. This project had several components.

-The students learned about the beauty and the ecological concerns of the river by taking a tour down the river and also by listening to naturalist Cal Jamison lecture on the water quality.

-The students gathered trash from around a sinkhole that was directly connected to the Spring.

- The students then designed and created a public Art piece called "The River of Glass" that was on display during the 2009 Wakulla Springs Wildlife Festival.

Seed Bomb Project

This is a project that was designed by the students. Clods comprised of indigenous seeds, compost and clay are meant to be tossed into vacant lots and inhospitable terrains. Seed bombs were first created by the Green Guerillas in 1972. They made seed grenades that were tossed over fences onto empty lots in New York City in order to make the neighborhoods look better.

Our Seed bombs contained lines of Poetry. The poem was written by Brandon Dukes, a student in the class. Two bombs were placed in brown bags on which the entire poem was printed. The bags were given out at the Alley Sprouts Green Alley exhibition last December.

The Earth Project

Public Art Events that Combine Art and Ecology

Sunday, March 28, 2010