Salon 41 // CLIMATE : Show & Tell

Hello, hello, hello and welcome everyone to our Techspressionist virtual salon number 41,

I think.

This is actually going to be the, not, not the last salon but the last right before our first big physical show in Southampton, which a lot of us have our works going to be debuting it will not debuting but appearing in and that's actually going to be, I think my first physical show period that I'll have work in. So I'm excited about that.

Davonte Bradley

And, yeah, it's kind of an exciting time because that's something that's been in the works for a very long time now. I think it the whole project initially got started two years ago during the pandemic, and it's now coming to fruition. Finally. So, yeah, big, big, big excitement. But that aside. Today, we are doing another salon that's topic based. It's a format that we're experimenting with a lot of people are seemingly enjoying it so we're going to keep it going.

Davonte Bradley

And today's topic is climate. Now I have a lot of thoughts about that I know a lot of other people have a lot of thoughts about climate and what it kind of means to them, and you know just kind of a. Surface thought about it, because this is what I kind of did the for the first one. What do we mean by climate. Do we mean climate by as far as you know the know the environment outside of us, or do we, are we referring to know perhaps political climates or social climates. All these kinds of things do interplay with our arts are even mixed together because now.

Davonte Bradley

Conversations. About the physical climate of Earth necessarily kind of coincide with social climate discussions and our feelings and thoughts regarding that so there's a lot of interplay with climate. So we have. A couple of people that had presentations or even art. On this subject that did want to present first.

Davonte Bradley

That was Karen and Marlo and Lee so again. I guess we'll start with Karen.

And don't forget me. Delvo I want to present and. I did not forget you. Yeah okay.

And you Susan as well.

Yes, I have two pieces, yes. Thank you.

Got you noted. But let's get things started off with Karen.

Right. Well, I will share my screen. And of course. I left it at the very end, which is not what I want.

Start at the end, it's okay.

It's okay. I'm done. So let me know if you can see the first slide with just black lines, top and bottom.

Yes.

Yes or no. Yes. Okay. Right. And I can present this way. So my project that I've been working on. Is.

On there. Yes.

On there. Pardon me.

Your color pickers on there.

Oh. Let's go back.

Wouldn't be one of our salons if there wasn't some sort of technical issue going on. Of course not.

I think it might be a tradition at this point.

Since we can get rid of that and now do it.

Looks like you're good to go.

Now. Get rid of the color picker. And everything? Yay. So I've been working towards a solo show for next July. And the basic theme is the ocean, which I live next to. This is right down the street from me. And I've picked areas in the ocean to investigate and then create off that investigation. Obviously, the ocean is a major climate driver.

Karen LaFleur

And I've seen this particular beach for all my life. And when I was a kid, there were only a few people on this beach. And now kind of the population of Manhattan visits the Cape and Islands in the summer. So populations have increased a lot. But I never found things as a kid on the beach other than just maybe a tiny piece of rope.

Karen LaFleur

Bring it to the beach. If we look forward to today, this is one January day, a few months ago, a storm had come in, the seaweed had filled that whole bay. And every two inches, there was a piece of plastic like this, which I was appalled at. Obviously, it's breaking down into small particles. And so I started to investigate this. And the plastic is going down into nanoparticles, which mixes with what they called ocean snow, which is just sort of detritus in the ocean. It's just like this everywhere.

Karen LaFleur

And it starts to clump and the plastic kind of gets involved in the clump. And then all this detritus is actually feeding the bottom of the ocean, which is driving all the food chain. And as the animals go from the bottom to the top, which are affecting currents which are affecting climate. So it's kind of there's a giant mechanism. And these nano plastic particles are down in the Marianas trench there everywhere. So I started to investigate this artistically. These are my beta versions of creating a creature that has its own sort of organic lifecycle.

Karen LaFleur

And has its own clumping mechanisms. And eventually, I can't show you the whole thing, the screen darkens and the clump gets larger and it goes to the bottom of the ocean. The fish that you saw will be covered with abstract forms going across. They're just there for tracking that will be done later. Color, size, speeds will all change.

Karen LaFleur

So that's one creature cycle that I developed. And here are the plastic chips coming in and getting involved in this whole sort of clump of organic matter that goes down to the bottom. This is another creature I'm working on for currents in the ocean. Of course, currents drive our clients. Our climate too. So this is sort of taking off on an octopus, where when the octopus comes out of his little egg, he's a little octopus, but he's the size of your baby fingernail. And he's just at the mercy of the currents, where he ends up as an adult coming back. So this whole animation will eventually follow his journey.

Karen LaFleur

Through the ocean. Right now, I've only got him as far as sort of meeting one creature that when he goes to it, leaves down on the other side. Again, timing everything. Like his eye isn't working in the right direction yet, but it will be working. I'm also doing still work for the project because another one of the categories I'm doing artwork for, for this solar system, is the solar system. So I'm doing a lot of work for the solar system. So I'm doing a lot of work for the solar system. So I'm doing a lot of work for the solar system. Although the vents down at the bottom of the ocean where, you know, the minerals that are being projected out from the center of the earth is creating these mineral towers and mineralized waters and the life down there is so abundant and actually really beautiful.

Karen LaFleur

I happen to live very close to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. So this is something I'm very familiar with. Seeing the films and seeing the whole thing. This is something that's new and new in my facility. Another part of this project is sound and how sound waves go through the oceans and how that climate of sound is being disrupted by ship traffic.

Karen LaFleur

So that is my project and presentation because I didn't know how much time we had tonight. So I just wanted to share that with you. The project that I'm currently working on.

Thank you so much. It's shaping up to be a wonderful project overall.

Thank you.

And you're getting definitely quite a bit of praise in the chat from what I could see and still getting it, actually.

Well, we can thank the ocean because it's quite a muse.

The ocean is a muse. The ocean is kind of actually what brought me back to Virginia, to be honest, because I lived in Georgia and I was I missed the beach. I missed the water. And even though Georgia has, you know, Savannah, it wasn't quite the same for me for some reason. I don't know why, but there were like no major bridges or tunnels to go through, like in Norfolk and that surrounding area. And I really missed that for some reason. I don't know.

You're very aware of the weather on an island. You definitely are. Yeah, absolutely.

All right. Did anyone have any questions or comments about Karen's project? Current project? Marla? Oh, you're muted.

There we go. Sorry. Karen, when is that? When will these pieces be completed and on display? I hope in July.

That will be the goal. And I have been given permission from the organization that when it's done, it's done. So I'm shooting for July. If it takes another month, they're going to give it to me. Which I really appreciate.

Excellent. I can't wait to see how they develop those animations.

All right. Susan?

I just wanted to say thank you for doing the work on a subject I care and follow a lot about, the plastics pollution. It's important work. And thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. I was really stunned when I saw last. Last. January. The amount of plastic that was entangled. Because when you see these pristine beaches, you think, yes, there's a plastic problem. It's out in this big vortex in the middle of the Pacific Ocean floating around. And yet it's on all our pristine beaches and food chain in the ocean.

Also in us now, too.

Yeah. Yeah. I follow a woman, Diane Cohen, who does a lot of work in that area. And she started off as an artist. And she started off talking about plastics and making things with plastic. And then eventually became like her full time started an organization and does a huge amount of work throughout the world about plastic.

Susan Detroy

What?

I said it's definitely needed. Every one of our contributions will help.

Thanks. Thank you.

All right.

And I know you had a presentation as well, correct?

Yep. Yep. All right.

You want me to go now? Yep. All right. I got to do a share screen. Now I'm nervous. What can I tell you?

Don't be nervous. We don't bite or judge too hard. All right.

I wanted to start off with, I guess, my muse. This is my first piece of computer art. It's the first drawing that I did in 1989. And in a way, I guess I never thought of it until you just mentioned it. But in a way, it's my muse. It's why I'm concerned about climate change and what's going on. All right. The.

Ann Shapiro

I started working in climate change. As a result of. Three part article by Elizabeth Colbert in the New Yorker and O2. And I decided I would focus on seas rising in cities, countries. And states. And I started with the Gambia, which I had never heard of. Because I closed my eyes, opened an Atlas and pointed my finger.

Ann Shapiro

And this is what came up. And it's a country. Surrounded by Senegal. On the west coast of Africa. And initially I wanted to do. I have a diagram and a map. And go from there. So I did Morocco. I did. I do layering. This is I put in my own paintings. This was something I've labeled probably after the fact. Churning seas.

Ann Shapiro

And the boats. So basically my. One of the reasons. I haven't spoken before is I feel intimidated by all your. Technical sophistication. I went to, I seem to have gotten to a point in my computer. And never got any further beyond that. I did a number of. Works and out in. Other countries. I decided I better do something. That was more related to the U S since I was having a show. I'm a member of series gallery and I've been able to show most of these works. Over the period of time. And so my first U S one was. California as I look at Florida. And I'm assuming you can see everything. Nobody's complained yet.

If you, I think you should click on that green button up there. You probably make it full screen. The green button. Yeah.

I don't want to click on chat. I don't want to. No, no, no.

The green button on the window.

Yeah. Green dot. Top left corner.

You know. Is that on. Well, I guess it's on your left.

Yeah.

That one.

Yeah. You were there.

Is it better? I clicked.

I can make it bigger. I think that's the point that people want to see it a little bigger. We can see it, but it's not full screen, which.

No.

Why? That's okay though. That's that looks good. Is that all right? Yeah. The, I, the way I showed these originally, I think I have, what I wanted to say of the Florida before I move. I didn't know quite how to, deal with the Florida, which everybody knows is going to fall under the, or drown. You know, I think we could call it drowning Florida. And in some cases, politically, the sooner, the better. But, anyway, so I did it. I, what I found on doing the research was there was so many different maps of what the kind of problems that were going on in, in, Florida. So that's where I hit. That's where I hit Alaska.

Ann Shapiro

This is still going on in New Talk shoreline. There it's eroding. They're, they're still having problems moving everybody. People are moving back from the, from the shore. This is started in 54. I did this piece in 08 and it's still, and this is a continuous, I looked it up the other day. It continues to be an on an ongoing problem. You know, what I was interested in initially was showing the country or the state and showing the couch, trying to convey the culture in hopes that people would be able to say, oh, might that change? I care, not care. I don't know. I don't know if it made a bit of difference. I'm a native of New Hampshire, so I had a, do a piece about New Hampshire. Actually did more than one. And when I first started, I said, this is kind of stupid on my part.

Ann Shapiro

New Hampshire has the smallest coastline of any of the States in the U S it's 18 miles. And I thought, oh, it's not going to affect New Hampshire at all or very little. And even this piece, which was done. In 2010, already the water was rising and 10 miles inland. The water was, was flooding because it was coming up from underneath. This talks about the ski areas that are closing the ice, how early the ice was breaking and when a Pesaki.

Ann Shapiro

Oh, I want to say one other thing. These lines, can you see the lines, the green lines? I broke those up. I initially showed the pieces by breaking them up into six by each one is six by eight inches. And I enlarged them to 7.5 by 10 and centered them on eight and a half by 11 inch paper. And that's how in framed each one. And that's how I showed it.

Ann Shapiro

Another New Hampshire piece. This is my. Big Vietnam, Vietnamese piece.

And I think we're still seeing a different piece. Nothing's changed. You're not seeing the, I'm seeing, I'm seeing New Hampshire townhouse. Oh, no, I am. Thank you. Sorry.

Yeah. Well, you know, I could close these. I wasn't realizing, is that bad? Ah, I just,

Hey, look what you've done, Tommy.

Okay. I, I got. I got fascinated. I think by the horse and the cost.

I see that.

That move for culture. This, this took two people a day to hang in the library. In the, in, where did that come from? In the gallery. I don't know where it came from.

So can I just suggest that you hit F on your keyboard and it will fill the screen. If you're in Photoshop and you hit F. Yeah, I just did, but I. I can't now I can't get to my notes. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Hit F again a few more times and you'll get out.

F a few more times. I'll get out.

Yeah.

Thank you. Sorry about that. I get, well, you can, my problem is I do have two screens, but I can't figure out why I have, I have both the gallery and the single shot show up on my, and I haven't been able to get out of it. This is, I guess I should focus on that. I did one on erosion because it gave me the whole state, the whole country. I'm not nervous or anything. And especially the problems with Lake Superior as, as the erosion problem, which I hadn't even thought about at the time. And, the, I, I was fascinated. This was, my adaptation of a, of a piece that was done by a guy. Here comes my cat. By a guy named Hogue during the depression in the 1930s.

Ann Shapiro

I was at an opening at a hell at the Hella gallery at the Hebrew union college and a rumor came around that, they were going to have a traveling map show. And so I immediately had a thought of how I would change my work because I knew they wouldn't hang. Something that took. Two people all day to hang. And, and it came into my mind. I would do approximately three pieces. And this is how I redid the Vietnam. Now it's big at non-peace and major, the May Kong Delta. And with one meter rise in sea level practically takes over the entire area.

And one second, Patrick actually had a question about what's going on with Lake Superior. Yeah.

What's going on with Lake Superior and the erosion. Cause I mean, you know, we, we, we live, you know, we live close to Lake Superior. You know, we're, we're just down in the river about two hours from Duluth.

Well, I can't speak to the Lake Superior. I do know I've, was a friend who lives near Lake Michigan and some years it's going down and some years it's flooding. Yeah. Having a lot of erosion, but it's been uneven.

Right. And I, and I know, and I know, I know what they wind up doing is, is that they're. There's erosion problems between Chicago and then, and then the, you know, going back to the, the, the landmass going back and forth between Chicago and Indiana dunes.

Yeah. They redid the redirected the river. Yeah. I have no, I have no answer.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was strange because I was there when I lived there for about 10 years and I remember when I remember. I remember when they built it. The when the chicago river changed directions and everybody's going wow wow that's interesting yeah

Yeah when I read about that I nearly it blew my mind I must say yeah I did a series of smaller works 18 inches by 24 inches and they did travel and the gallery I mean the museum did ask me to donate two of them then they had another show and this is I did a puerto rico following the hurricane the devastation of the hurricane I have very dear friends down there and I was able to speak to them a lot because they couldn't go out or go anywhere but their phone was working and my friend said we don't know what to hope for which became the title of this piece and it's there's most of this is either my own artwork my own photography oh my I mean yeah okay yeah this is some of the things I did in changing in developing the puerto rico in the map until I came to came to it the philippines boston this is all my photography not the diagrams and not the where the sea level riser goes on taken the photo taken that the lines the black lines taken from the museum of contemporary art in boston out of the over the harbor I pray another one spain their problem is humidity new york the floods one day the art changed this piece when hung is 65 inches by 95 inches 65 65 by 90.

Ann Shapiro

And the director of the gallery had said to me, why don't you have a climate change show? And I thought that was a good idea. I don't know what happened, but this is what happened. This is what came out. There I am. Can you see me suffering and proud of my piece? Then oh I missed one god forbid right I think I left it out it's not there all right then I worked on another piece for another show we did I just run through the process And last but of course not least, the final, the final piece. Peace. There I am. Thank you very much.

Well, thank you, Anne.

Thank you. Thank you, Lee.

Well, that was beautiful. Actually, there's a couple that are, 29 is also, 29R is also beautiful.

That was, yeah,

Sometimes you don't know when you either stop too late or stop too soon. Yes. Yeah, thank you.

I'd love to see the, what is it, five feet by nine feet or 60 by 90?

65 by 95. What I do is I print them out in 13 inch by 19 inch sections and command strips is my latest, using command strips and then lay them out on the wall. Which is very good if you are hanging your own piece, but if you want it to get hung in another place, not such a good thing. People are not gonna be willing to do that. And so that's my excuse anyway.

Ann Shapiro

Thank you. Okay, thanks.

Thank you, thank you. Does anyone have any questions or comments about Anne's work?

I do.

Roz, go ahead.

I just wanted to say, I really liked the sort of infographic juxtaposition with painterly undertones. And your work has a very fresh and original storytelling information aspect to it that I really was drawn to. I mean, it's a serious topic, but they're kind of fun. At least to me, they have a kind of paradox about them. What do you go out to? I'm not sure what a command strip is, but.

Oh, I discovered this at my now 22 year old great nephew's bar mitzvah, his Wisconsin family. We were hanging, his mother and dad had been in China. They met and had brought back these very fragile posters and we're gonna hang them. And I thought, not. And they had, I said, no, we got command strips.

Ann Shapiro

These little strips that you post on the wall and you put your object on it. Doesn't mar anything, doesn't mar the paper, doesn't mar the wall. And then you just pull them right down after you're done.

Is it a canvas? What's the material? It's a 3M product.

It's like a plastic. Yeah, it's a little 3M thing. It's really nice. Yeah. They're really nice.

That sounds great.

Double sided tape.

I've held them up for a month. Every once in a while, you know, I'll have a little, you know, one might come off a little bit, you know, it's climate change. You cannot predict.

Also, I want

To comment on, I remember you saying that you, you felt like out of place because you hadn't really evolved too much with your use of technology. That is not uncommon in this group. A lot of people are, they're not necessarily tech savvy. They're good enough with what they do though.

And they appreciate that.

Yeah. So there's, there's definitely a lot of people in here that are in that same kind of boat.

I appreciate that. Yeah.

Actually with that, with that, with that, with that one piece, that last piece that you showed yourself with and with the Gower with is that, is that I didn't hear you talk too much about it, but I think in many ways being that I was in the big storm, you know, up, up in the Midwest last night is that I was watching I was watching radar maps and that sort of thing. I think it's kind of interesting that you're using kind of like the landscape and then sort of like actually sort of like realizing the sort of motifs that you have from like a severe radar weather scene and that sort of thing happening. And I don't know whether that was intentional, but that's how I read it. And for the theme, I thought that was pretty compelling.

That's interesting. No, the radar theme wasn't, if that's my understanding correctly, you're seeing a radar theme.

Yeah, kind of like, you know, so it's like, you know, the black and the yellow and the red and the sky. That sort of thing so I mean like the yellow and the red is almost you know it looks it looks a lot like how severe weather looks on a radar map you know not

Conscious but

I mean I think it worked though yeah delighted that it was seen that way yeah you know maybe something to consider for future work honestly okay

Yeah I have some paintings that deal with that would deal with the hurricane katrina before before I was where I pasted stuff onto the canvas you know I'd print out a drawing or a map or whatever and slap it onto the canvas that was that's how it began incidentally I got in loved computer because I saw you it in the must have been the 80s at epcot center they had this big display oh yeah mac paint and that's what got me going you know I loved it that's for me

Cynthia did you have something oh sorry I just did yeah

Oh there you go yeah wonderful oh

Yeah so I had a couple quick questions comments one is I'm a big proponent of printing on fabric when you go really large and I use spoon flower they use dyes so they will fade over time I've never noticed the fading but it's But it's really great because you can go up to, depending on what you choose, about 36 by 54 or 50 or something. I mean, if you want to hold it over.

That's smaller than what I'm doing.

Pardon?

That's smaller than what I'm showing.

Okay.

65 by 95.

Okay. So maybe it wouldn't work for you. I think the scale is, for me, when you go big and something's traveling, it's really great.

So I wanted to mention that. Tempted to go with plastics you know like those big things on buses yeah you can do that conflicted with here I'm dealing with climate change as my subject matter and I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to manage climate change I'm using plastic.

Well,

It's an issue. I said it because I'm using ink.

But you're using ink. Yeah, what can you do? So thank you for the work.

I was really...

I spent a lot of time in Senegal, so I'm aware... I spent a long time, but when you talk about Gambia, and I'm aware of the differences between countries that are talking about desertification, the spreading of the desert, and then people who are getting flooded out. And so I think the way that you point to different geographical areas is really great. And I think the more that you kind of say this is about that difference, the stronger the statement. Because we only know about our own little climate change most of the time.

It's so hard to imagine somebody else's pain, really. It is hard. Yeah.

So thank you for leading us there.

Thank you.

Now, Shalda, did you have something else you wanted to add?

I was just commenting that I didn't think that Anne's work would translate that well to fabric because you would have a certain loss of color saturation, which is such a big part of your aesthetic.

Gotcha.

Actually, the color is extremely vibrant when you put it on the fabric. Very, very vibrant. It translates better than... Than most other printing. It's just that they're using dyes rather than pigmented ink. So over time, you know, I haven't seen it fade, but it will fade over time. So for other people who are considering it, it's great for traveling shows.

Cynthia Beth Rubin

So.

Something to consider. But the thing is, you could probably put a UV fixative on it, couldn't you? That would probably slow it down a bit. Yeah. Wouldn't it?

I've never seen it fade in point five.

Yes, you can. The point is interesting because I could take the paper and say, all right, this is how it goes. But for travel, I'm going to put it on two pieces of fabric, which I'd looked into fabric, but I'd never thought maybe I could patch it together.

Yeah, you can patch it together. Yeah.

That might be an approach to take. Okay.

It's on 611. 611.com. Signs.com. Signs.com has very good prices for printing on fabric. S-I-G-N-S.com. I've had good experiences with them.

Also. It's very, very large.

I'm sorry, Tommy. Also, I used to do rugs. They were one of a kind paintings and we'd travel those shows. And, you know, when they get to the gallery, everybody wants to put these tapestry clips. But all we did, and I think the largest one I did was 11 by 14, knotted rugs. So it's very heavy. And some of them were small and light. Is you take the strip for wall-to-wall carpeting, flip it over, hang your fabric, and that's all you need is a couple of tacks into the wall.

Nice.

It's a very simple, easy way to travel a show and hang fabrics.

All right. Oh, it is 612. I did not realize. As riveting as this conversation is, I think there are a couple other people that want to present before time is done. But thank you so much for Anne and your presentation. Thank you. And I guess we'll be moving right along. I think next up is Marlo.

Hi. I will be very short. Okay. I have a three minute film. And basically I'm drawing from my skill set. I used to be a CBS news anchor. I was a news photographer and editor. And also worked in a conservation center for about 10 years. So I was able to capture some lovely footage of the native animals where I live. And I know we have people from various areas of the country and the world. And I'm sure you have animals that you watch and love.

Marlow DJ Shami

So I'm not doing this in my art work right now. I'm not utilizing what I utilize to create mutual us, which is the name of this three minute film. This is about a year. And I produced it when I saw a lot of postings of people who were getting out and hadn't been out in a while into the natural world and seeing the responses and then seeing those posts. I'm sure you all saw them of animals sort of wandering around in areas where you, we usually populate. And so basically that's my introduction. It's a, it's a love letter as well as a documentation of some of my work. And I'm sure you have some of my heart heartbreak around what is going on globally.

Marlow DJ Shami

So let me share.

The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. The world. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Nice.

That was wonderful.

Thank you. Thank you. I don't get an opportunity to share it often enough, but I like to leave those what you can do links for people who want to learn more about climate feedback loops. But my background is also in eco-psychology after I went to university and got my undergraduate in photography and video in the 70s. I went back mid-life and got a master's in science in eco-psychology, which is basically understanding how the relationship we have personally with the natural world, the quality of that relationship is directly related to our personal experience and our collective experience. So that informs a lot of what I'm doing nowadays and someday in the near future or far future, I'll share that in a salon.

Marlow DJ Shami

I just love this group. I've only been able to attend, I think, four or five times, but I just think you guys are very generous. And welcoming. And it was a pleasure to be able to share this with you.

It's a pleasure having that presentation too. Thank you. Thank you for attending.

Yeah.

All right.

Do anyone have any questions or comments about Marla's presentation?

How much time did you have? I don't know. It lapses while, how much time elapsed while you were getting that footage?

Oh, you know, I was pulling from various projects over the years. There was footage. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't tell you.

Okay.

Yeah.

I want to comment because I know Marla well. I mean, her commitment to the earth and nature is extraordinary. Her whole home and landscape and land around her. They're making wild habits. So a lot of the footage, although she's taken it over the years, have been direct contact with her with these creatures. And her photography is absolutely amazing.

Karen LaFleur

So I just wanted to bring that up that there's a lot more behind the video you saw.

Yeah. Karen and I. Oh, go ahead. How close were you to that bobcat? You know, it's that bobcat. She had her kitten. She had her kittens here. And they used to we live in a log cabin with a wraparound porch. Those kittens used to come up on the wraparound porch. She'd stand, you know, over in the side. And so she was I shot that out of my bedroom window. She was probably 10 feet away.

Wow.

The deer were in the backyard. I raised monarchs one year and used my macro lens to get the shot of the caterpillar. Let's see the snake. That was a black rat snake native to this area. I used to handle one and do programs that snake's name is Jacob. Very sweet, sweet snake. I was only one that could handle him. For some reason, everyone was frightened by him. Who else was in there? The jellyfish.

Marlow DJ Shami

Norwalk Aquarium. So, yeah. Yeah.

That is awesome.

Yeah. It's the other thing I do is for the last year, the last 20 years, I've been doing workshops, including the eco psychology piece or experiential workshops. I have a PowerPoint. Everyone goes out and starts learning the language of nature and how to dialogue with it. Obviously not in a traditional human way. And then I usually have a guided meditation for folks to integrate the experience, remembering what they already knew, but forgot and perhaps some new material. So I really split my time between making art and doing workshops.

And I think that's was an interesting place to start. What I think that's going to be on the next few years. And I think that's one of the things that I'm going to think about that I'm going to is it's not like that I'm going to have to have to have And I had a lot of different feelings about it over the years because I couldn't actually be out in it when I was younger. I'm not sure if you were part of that early conversation that we were having before the recording started, but I had really bad lung issues.

Davonte Bradley

So I had severe asthma as a child. So I had very, very limited contact with nature and the outdoors because anytime that I would have like activity out there, I would have an asthma attack. So where most children would, you know, were trying to spend their time outdoors and, you know, running around doing typical kid stuff. I was indoors doing art on MS paints and things like that.

Davonte Bradley

But I know I realized that I did care quite a bit about, you know, nature and the environment because I had a love for animals and trees. And that kind of thing, even though I couldn't always be near them. But I don't think I ever really nurtured that going forward. Like I still care deeply about them, but I don't think I ever did a whole lot, so to speak, on that front. I probably should. Probably should.

Well, you're a part of it, you know, and you'll find a way and an attraction that might inspire you to do it safely. Right. You know, because you know you're on the road. You know, you're on the road. You know, you're on boundaries and limitations as far as your health and that's that comes first. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's everywhere. Right. Even the middle of the city. I've done workshops in the middle of North Walk, Virginia. It's like there.

Yes. Oh, Holly, you have something to share.

Yes. I mean, this is a very emotional topic for me. I don't know why or how. I've. Always felt this relationship with nature. And in an interview way back at the turn of the century, I said, Mother Nature has no voice. I want my work to speak for her. Today, a news day there was on the front page a multimillion dollar project going to fix the polluted water. The polluted water. That was for about 50 years on Long Island. Now Jacques Cousteau had said people treat our water and air like garbage cans. I was in Antarctica in 1999 when it became 2000. The air down there is so much clearer and the pollution is drifting down from the Northern Hemisphere. And when I was doing research for the debut exhibit that I had of Antarctica. At the New York Hall of Science, I was checking data that was taken in the 1960s and 80s.

Holly Gordon

So my being there already showed the melting of the ice. Now, Antarctica has 90% of the ice on our planet, and it's melting. And the melting ice causes the water all over our planet to rise, and it also increases the temperature of the oceans, which makes the hurricane seasons last longer. We are so interrelated, and trying to bring a place as remote as Antarctica to the public is very, very difficult. The whole thing is very difficult. And then we run into money problems and political problems. And it's tough.

Speaking of political climate.

Oh, yeah. Which is also very hot.

Right. Susan?

Thank you. Oh. Yeah, this is, I am in the category of people that are very connected to nature. And I have a whole Instagram. I just posted about connected things to nature and flowers, that kind of thing. But also, I haven't even mentioned this, that I just finished writing a project grant. I hope that I get it for us to follow up film. And this is related to the topic. Follow up film to my documentary that I made in 2020. And this one that I wrote a proposal for and have been hoping to publish it in 2020. So I'm going to take a little bit of time to look at it. So I'm going to start with the book. And I'm going to also need to look at the link to the book. So I'm going to also see one of the questions in the chat. Get to the question. Your question.

Susan Detroy

Get to the question. The question is, not all or all. So, yeah, it's a topic that I am deeply connected to and hope to be doing a film in 2022, 23 about that heartfelt connection and how we can get there. We don't have to go to the mountains. We can just go outside, walk in our neighborhoods or ride our bicycle and we can feel that connection in that way. So, thanks.

Thank you. And did you have something you want to add as well? I saw that you'd raised your hand. Oh, technical issues.

No technical issues. Yes.

There we go. I had a feeling. Just wanted to make sure though. All right. Again, in the interest of time, I think there were a couple more people that want to have a presentation today. I think Lee, you're up next. Great.

And I apologize. My webcam is messed up. So now I'm on my phone, but I have my computer. I have a second version of me up top and that one's attached to my desktop. So I'm going to share a screen from there. And I want to apologize to everybody in advance because especially after After that beautiful film that we just watched, the serene nature.

Lee Schnaiberg

I'm kind of going to be doing the opposite. Sort of. I've spent a lot of time doing mashups and a decade doing climate change movies. Started in the 90s when people used to say to me, I want it to get warmer. Why do I care? And I'd be like, you don't understand. And they got a little frustrated and that might have influenced my style, which is why when I do my paintings or my photos, I try to just do A different kind of appreciation of either nature or things maybe on an esoteric level. But when it comes to climate. Anyway, it's three minutes long and I hope you enjoy it. We're going to share the screen now. And no, that's not it. Select which one do I want to select a window or application that you want to share? I want to share the screen.

Lee Schnaiberg

Okay. And then a share. Okay. So here we go.

There's no sound. Oh, did you, did you remember to click share sound when you are sharing your screen?

I did not. Okay. Sorry about that. Let's go back and do this again. That's all good.

It happens to the best of us.

Okay. So let's go back to the zoom. I want to go back to the zoom now. Oh, we are on the zoom. So how, okay.

So just stop sharing and share it again. Yeah.

Stop sharing. And then share it again.

Yeah.

There should be a little option that says share with sound.

Yep. Okay. And I'm going to keep it like in the middle. So it's hopefully not too loud, but if it's too loud, lower the volume. But here we go. Everybody's I hope ready. And I'll make it full screen. Make it full screen. That's this one. Okay.

What is CCH? Climate change.

There'll be a change in the weather. Change in the weather. Strange weather. Strange weather. Climate change. Change in the weather. Climate changes Climate changes Climate changes Climate changes Climate, climate, climate changes Climate changes Climate changes Climate changes Climate changes Climate changes Changes in the weather Changes Changes Climate Changes Climate Changes Clim-...ate Ch-ch-changes Clim- Changes Clim- Clim- Changes Clim- Changes Clim- Ch-ch-ch-changes Clim- Climate changes.

Unattributed

Climate changes. Climate changes. Climate changes.

We're done out there. Turn the light off. And

The light outfit's got two circles.

Changes Climate changes Climate changes Climate changes Changes Chances Climate

Changes Changes

Changes Changes Changes Changes Changes We think that's changing the weather Changes the weather Changes Changes Changes Changes The rain is still heavy But I think the clouds are out And I'm loose today Heavy

Weather's brewing Heavy weather Climate changes

Climate changes Climate changes Climate

Changes

Thank you everybody Some changes can't be stopped, but you can stop climate change.

Sorry about the mallet over the forehead there.

There oh it's all good when you said that was opposite that soundtrack was amazing it

Was how

Much time did you put into that was I loved your video that was

Really powerful well

You know I tried to do something that sort of I wanted to do it in a short little piece and then I and I like the idea of taking well there's not a lot of people singing climate it but

There's

A lot of people singing about a mountain and they're gonna climb it and I was like wow okay and then I found people saying changes but then I then I thought okay well I don't want to make this like just an overload of disaster porn so I mean I did want to get that out to people that like this is what we're going to be seeing regularly if we don't do something but I've been working with a lot of people doing carbon dioxide removal, and it's gaining a lot of momentum now.

Lee Schnaiberg

There's ways that you can make soil much healthier and grow better quality food by using stuff that right now is stored as waste, either from cement factories or from mine tailings. Not all of it, but a lot of it can be used. And it makes better quality food, climate resistant. It increases the biomass in forests by 800%.

Lee Schnaiberg

There's this amazing book called Geotherapy, not geoengineering, but geotherapy. And the stats are amazing. Like an apple from the 1950s, if you were to try to get that same nutrient value that you would get in the 50s from one apple, you have to eat six apples now. So there's something that we can do they call it enhanced rock weathering that takes carbon out of the atmosphere and it increases our life quality of life so what I decided to do is while there's all these overwhelming images make it like an easter egg hunt that people see all these things unfortunately when it comes on to zoom it doesn't it's a little bit lost in the translation but you know having like about a hundred people get, I think people will get a sense. They're like, Oh, I saw solutions. Is there solutions?

Lee Schnaiberg

And you can pause and you can get these URLs and you can see that there are all these things happening now that are positive, that if more people were to get behind, we could maybe see ourselves out of this. I mean, we'll never undo all the damages. One of the names that was in the video is Paul Beckwith.

Lee Schnaiberg

Paul Beckwith is one of the Arctic experts, right up there with a guy named Peter Wadhams. And, he's famous for saying what, what, what, what happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic. And, you know, we see it with, with these, polar vortexes that go down and all of a sudden in Georgia, everything freezes or, you know, these, these whips of freezing cold weather that come down from the poles. And that's just the start. And before, who was it that was talking about the Arctic?

Lee Schnaiberg

Holly was talking about the Antarctic. And this past couple of months, one part of the Antarctic, which ironically has two volcanoes that are living, active volcanoes. Volcanoes one's called mount doom and the other is called mount iribus and they're like surrounded by ice and that ice is cracking up now so this is this is a this could lead to several feet of an increase you

Know

In a decade as opposed to like everything that I learned was always they'd say that oh this is going to be in 100 years and then it happens 20 years and oh this far away. There's stuff that the IPCC didn't want to put into their reports because they didn't want to freak everybody out, like about how the Gulf Stream, the thermohaline conveyor belt that keeps, regulates the temperature on the planet, how that might break down because when you put a ton of fresh water at the head of it, which is in the Arctic, it can break the whole chain. And then And all of a sudden the Gulf Stream breaks down and the rain cycles that we're used to having break down. So, I mean, they didn't want to put that in because that's too freaked out. That would sound too extreme.

Lee Schnaiberg

You know, and I mean, and I don't even know what it's like in the States because I have one friend who's in Washington. Right now he's working for the Gates Foundation. And so he and he's very he's not like left or right but I've heard him say liberals a bunch of times which blows my mind and when I talked to him about climate he's like oh well the liberals and I'm like no let's talk about the like what have you seen you know and do some research talk to scientists like don't make it into a political issue because that's really a provincial issue in the states it's not a provincial issue with most other countries on the planet where climate change is a reality and so I guess I wanted to make something that would kind of say it in less than two hours which is like my old movies were always about two hours long so that wasn't too much it

Was not too much it was it was I think it was just enough well thanks thank you thank you very much everybody yeah I'll also say like as far as and being kind of cognizant of the politicals going on here about doing anything about the environment Or the climate Has become Politicized Heavily Not even lightly Any kind of ideas about preserving the environment Is immediately labeled as a left or right idea And it's You don't want that to happen But it's what's happening And we're having to deal with that And it's not pretty

It's horrible Yeah I hope that people start to realize You know I always thought that You know the funniest thing is that One of the projects that I've been working on Is Using these rock dust For farmers Because a farmer can save about $300 per acre So if a farmer's got a thousand acres You know We can save them like A third of a million dollars If they make their If they basically Suck carbon out of the atmosphere And that's not including Carbon credits So they could double that And then people tell me Oh yeah but most farmers In the states don't care Because They have this thing that If their crops get ruined They get money from the government And so They don't really care about that They don't really care And I'm like well But after a while Don't they care Like when they're looking at

You

Would hope

You would hope But like many things The hope only gets you so far Because it

There has to be a real connection You know A heart connection It has to be like an extension Of the family Which is

Actually

The area I try to work on But you know Unless you feel that You know that For the bobcat Or the lawn Or the dandelion You just ate Who cares Right Yeah

Telling anybody about that He puts a bumper sticker On his truck That he goes into town That says I saved $300 per acre Ask me how

And then maybe

So much Maybe Rebranding And optics That's what I hope I hope I hope we do something Because

Because I just get frustrated sometimes So I just want to make Funny pictures But I hope

We do something Yeah So who's next Up next I think we have Susan And I'm hoping We get Lucy as well

Okay Hi Hi I'm going to try to Screen share Which always makes me nervous Okay I'm gonna No

That's not it Screen All right Start Right Cast No

Oh Wait a second I have to do Sorry I put you all on I get to get out of that First When I When I Watch this I put it on my TV I mirror it to my television So I can see it bigger And it won't let me see it Let me Share when I have that going. I'm going to try again. All right, here we go. Okay.

Susan Detroy

So, is all going well, you're seeing a photo. Yep. Okay. Okay. I'm going to show two. That are part of a series That I started in 2016 That some of you are familiar with where I use my own face And life Who I am And blend that With Elements Now Originally I was using some Human created elements But now I'm just using Natural world elements And So I have been Looking more At this series As Time's gone by And also! I've been influenced by The time during the pandemic Where I'm Much more connected to people Internationally And well like here This group And also I'm connected to two other online Big international groups Well one is fairly big And one has 15 people So I'm So I feel more affected to the world Outside of Origin And I think that's Because of my small town And also During the pandemic I'm I shifted to entirely digital art making I used to make Prints And Make Canvases Of my work I don't I'm not doing that At this time I don't know if I will again And I'm And I'm also Starting to use more video But I'm Not going to show that today So I've been So I've In Thinking about my work I've been looking And Organizing And Kind of Re-categorizing And for This Today I started Look I looked back In several piece Through some pieces That I've done And I believe this piece Originally I did in 2018 So I did quite a few pieces That In that period From 2018 To The pandemic And Many of these Are About In Retrospect I think Much more about My relationship To the earth And My feeling about it During that time In Oregon We experienced Fires And More than one Dramatic Fires That Devastated Areas Throughout my state And also During the summer We're having Heat waves And Anyway Every Very Unusual And Changing Events That are going on Although our weather Weather pattern here is Still a bit Holding up In The Willamette Valley And So I wanted to show These pieces That I Went To Back in And reworked A small amount Just For today And Like seeing them From A 2022 Eyes My own vision Now in 2022 And Thinking More deeply About The significance Of The earth And its effect On my art And Upon My Whole being Spiritual Mental Emotional Being So this was one That I wanted to show And This is a second one That I made Probably Even Before This piece Has Gone Through A few Renditions And It made Was in a couple I did print it out As a Color Piece It had More With Looked more Natural Worldly The first time And I thought of it As I didn't think of it As much In anguish As I do now I This is a place That I Have walked Along With a friend For many years And!

Susan Detroy

That's Along the Willamette Valley That's north Of where I live And I haven't Been there This spring yet But It's a Sort of Oops My phone is going off Quacking And It's The edge of farm Farmland And The natural world Of the river Kind of Cross between The wild River And when I Looked at it In the last Few days To rework it I realized That I Felt More anguish About How the world Is affecting Me now In terms of Climate And war And pandemic pandemic and politics. So I reworked it with that feeling in mind. And I don't know what to have anything else to say. I think that's it. Those are my two pieces that I wanted to share. I'll just show this one again.

Susan Detroy

I'm noticing the colors are much more hot than they were before. For both of these pieces work had them all of this has some cool in it. But this piece definitely is hotter in terms of feeling and palette. So, all right. I'm going to stop that now. Thank you. Much, Susan. You're welcome.

Clive, did you have something in your head or are you just clapping? Oh, okay. Gotcha. All right. Thank you so much. We've only got a couple more minutes left, so I'm going to try to get in Lucy. And maybe Patrick as well. I'm not sure we'll have time for Sahar, but we'll try to get those two in real quick. So Lucy, are you here?

Yes, I'm here.

All right.

Okay, I have two animations. They're just like a minute each. I just quickly want to say, more important than anything that I have to show, is that Attenborough has a new documentary out called Breaking Boundaries. And like all of his documentaries, it's phenomenal and terrifying and really important. So Breaking Boundaries really, he's talking about tipping points, nine tipping points that we're heading towards. Temperature being one, biodiversity, garbage, a bunch. So I really recommend that. And now I'm going to share my screen.

Lucy Boyd-Wilson

So this, oh, you know what? I forgot to share sound. The first one is coral, coral bleaching. I spent three incredible weeks in Fiji in the 90s, snorkeling and diving, incredible coral life. So it's tragic what is happening to the oceans and our coral reefs. So I created this animation.

Thank you.

And my second piece is a tree. I'll start this with, I live in California where wildfires and drought, when I first... Here, wildfires, the fire season was only about six weeks. This was 20 years ago, and now it's like months. Some years it's like six months of anxiety around fire. So anyway, here's this one.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you, Lucy. Those were great.

I'd just like to say, Lucy, it was really beautiful and wonderful, your work. When I saw your coral reef on Instagram, I was like, so it touched me deeply. I believe I saw the David Attenborough breaking point about a month ago. A month or so ago. Everyone should watch it. It's absolutely outstanding in terms of breaking down just how the progression of this is going.

Karen LaFleur

So I just wanted to put that in. It is a good series. Or film.

I appreciate all of that. We have three minutes to go. Before the end of our scheduled time. So if anyone had. Pat, do you want to go very quickly? Yeah,

Sure. Let's see here. Can I. Okay. This kind of has to do with a project that I worked on with a guy named Nathan Schaefer, who's now doing climate-based comic books with Native Alaskans and that sort of thing. And this just kind of. Comes from. Our exploration of the Alaska Archives. Seeing that they actually wanted to do.

Patrick Lichty

Weather protection domes for Anchorage in the 1970s. We actually kind of did this initial kind of like 22nd century climate fiction. Bruce Sterling, the science fiction writer said he wanted more 22nd century stuff. Because. Near 21st century wasn't right science fiction anymore and so we thought we thought about the 22nd century where we're thinking about whether science whether climate whether climate is going to run away or not and everything's gone to dirigibles and the entire world is being you know all the all the knowledge of the world is being sealed up into these domes and wondering whether we're going to have to seal ourselves within them. So this is, I had to do, I think this was at the Anchorage Museum, I think. And this was a group show of artists. And this is actually for sale.

Patrick Lichty

This is from Nathan. And this is an anthology of 22nd century climate fiction pieces about these alternate universes. And he actually also has a, what he called fish head soup. A comic book company that is actively working between Anglo and Native Alaskan writers and artists to try to give the indigenous peoples of the Northwest kind of a, you know, more voices in pop culture. So, and the other thing is, is that, yes, these are 80 by 60 inch tapestries, actually. So, and these were, I think these are actually still in Alaska. But anyways, that's about two, three years ago. And that's my contribution.

All right. Well, thank you for that, Patrick.

And most of them were done in 3D Studio Max and compiled with Photoshop as well.

Nice. 3DS Bash is a software that I wanted to get access to. And I wanted to get access to and learn how to use. And then I just, I just never got around to it. Like the height of my interest with it. I didn't actually have a computer strong enough to run it. It takes some power.

Yeah.

All right. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. All right. And I think we are right here at time or actually a little one minute over. That being said, if you did want to stick around to continue the conversation. We do have our kind of after party or after salon discussions. That's very loosely moderated. I'll still probably be around. And you can indulge in further conversation and discussion during that time. But before that, I just want to say, thank you all for attending. Thank you so much for your participation and discussion.

Davonte Bradley

All the questions that you bring consistently about the presentations that we have and look forward to seeing you guys next time. So thank you so much.

Thanks everyone. That was great.

Thank you. All right. Signing off in five, four, three, two, one. And.