{"id":761,"date":"2014-06-16T13:49:27","date_gmt":"2014-06-16T13:49:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chesapeakecitizens.org\/?page_id=761"},"modified":"2017-12-22T02:16:26","modified_gmt":"2017-12-22T02:16:26","slug":"current-project-disappearing-drawings","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/chesapeakecitizens.org\/?page_id=761","title":{"rendered":"Disappearing Drawings"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Native Seed Paper Discs: Shaping\/Drawing\/Releasing<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Click HERE<\/a> for a video description of “Disappearing Drawings”.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Click HERE<\/a> to see my new eco-business Echotopia LLC<\/a> which takes this project in a new direction, enabling other inhabitants of the Chesapeake bioregion to plant my seed paper discs, to participate in biodiversity building with me, one micro habitat at a time. Echotopia LLC is an evolution of “Disappearing Drawings”, and is a longer term artistic, ecological and economic experiment.<\/strong><\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Sculpted, sketched, launched from ten finger tips, <\/em><\/strong>
\n My old paper nature drawings de-compose and re-begin<\/em><\/strong>
\n The things themselves, not just pictures:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Rising from the soil<\/em><\/strong>
\n Oh! pretty objects seen, yes<\/em><\/strong>
\n Then, breathing on their own<\/em><\/strong>
\n They no longer need human eyes.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Living dying living living<\/em><\/strong>
\n Spiraling out and out and out.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Meet my three dimensional<\/em><\/strong>
\n Extending family\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
\n Biodiversity’s botanical babies\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Back to when I was not here<\/em><\/strong>
\n Forward too.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A humble micro remix:\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong>
\n Patient, adaptive,\u00a0stubborn<\/em><\/strong>
\n Interdependent,\u00a0ingenious<\/em><\/strong>
\n Aesthetic eye and body delighting<\/em><\/strong>
\n Blueprints of local living systems.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A flipped script<\/em><\/strong>
\n An antidote<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Damned good tale, magical children’s story<\/em><\/strong>
\n Embedded seeds as little leaders, hidden heroes<\/em><\/strong>
\n Quiet smiling teachers, all, sprinkling what’s known.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Wiser\u00a0power, smarter ritual\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Than\u00a0hu mans crafting<\/em><\/strong>
\n A<\/em>gain upon again and again<\/i><\/strong>
\n Death paths to cover us all:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Leaking, exploding, dusty,\u00a0spilling<\/em>:\u00a0<\/em>coal, fracked\u00a0gas and crude oil<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

On trains, on roads<\/em><\/strong>
\n Out of pipes, rigs, tankers, boats.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Vessels that could, instead, move and cup life.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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I’ve been thinking lately about the ubiquity and comforting quality of circular, curved forms.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Life cycles are also on my mind. And I have seen that all living forms -including terribly messy humans – are pollinator and indicator species.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Perhaps it would be prudent if we humans begin to participate in the creation of everyone’s food, life’s nectar. After all, other animals and plants do this, and it’s what we all need.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a> A minuscule urban garden can produce millions of seeds in one fleeting season! Last fall, I couldn’t resist gathering bags and bags of seeds from my pocket paradise, my mini meadow. Eventually, I dreamed up a new idea.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Disappearing Drawings,<\/em>\u00a0my new long term project, involves: upcycling old paper into new paper pulp, mixing native perennial flower seeds from my garden into the wet pulp, drying the papers as 13″ diameter rounded forms, drawing on them each, then conducting ritual releasings of my discs in nearby locales in order to promote biodiversity. Thus multiple nature pathways or aisles are constructed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Disappearing Drawings<\/em> is a deliberate antidote to the growth of fossil fuel corridors everywhere we look, so it seems. It is also about learning from Nature’s stubborn genius: trying out, then growing accustomed to, pleasantly impactful human behaviors that support all life.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Above are two early prototypes.\u00a0<\/span>Below is a close up of another early prototype disc.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Along with hints of plants, live-beings-to-come and seeds, familiar words from documents of our past lives are often visible on the newly formed paper.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Methodically hand tearing paper – alone or with others – slows time’s precious passage. Upcycling used paper is more respectful to trees than recycling, and the act of tearing old paper and reconstructing it with native perennial seeds and friends – for a new purpose – symbolizes a merging of our private past and shared future.<\/strong> \"Screen<\/a>I release my Disappearing Drawings<\/em> where their chances of transformation, then growth, as living forms are greatest and most needed. This can mean planting them, placing them into a body of water, or tearing them up and letting the wind decide where the seeds will land.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I sometimes release the dics near human food gardens for reciprocity or mutual benefit. Some seeds require stratification for germination, and this delay and temperature change need is taken into account.\u00a0I benefit from the wise counsel of a Frostburg State University ethnobotany student, Irvine Science Center, Maryland Native Plant Society<\/a> and\u00a0Blue Water Baltimore<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Already a steep, constant learning curve, unpredictability, improvisation, and surprises are features of this project.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some native flowering plants – such as Common or Swamp Milkweed<\/a>, Bee Balm, Joe Pie Weed, Goldenrod, Aster and Butterfly Weed – host or attract the greatest number and variety of pollinators such as moths, butterflies and bees through the seasons. \u00a0Bees, Butterflies and Moths are increasingly threatened <\/a>, yet\u00a0we depend on them for our food. \u00a0These will become my focus. Seeds that would be destroyed in paper will be released alongside the discs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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After I release my art discs, the actual\u00a0<\/em><\/span>things<\/em>, not merely drawings of them, eventually appear nearby, and will reappear nearby again and again on their own.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

—–<\/b><\/p>\n

In August 2014<\/span>, I released Grasshopper\/Cone Flower Discs.<\/span>\u00a0The below photos show the releasing near a derelict British Petroleum (BP) gas station toxic trash site.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why Grasshopper? Because, for the first time since I planted my garden four years ago, I hear Grasshopper daily, hidden under my growing Cone Flower patch. Why BP? \u00a0British Petroleum’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill was, and remains, a planetary disaster.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Grasshopper may indeed be more resilient than BP, in spite of BP’s long practice of deadly global fossil fuel profiteering, worst record of U.S. environmental destruction<\/a>, and cynical\u00a0greenwashing<\/a>. A few weeks after my August 2014 releasing action, an $18 billion fine for BP’s gross negligence<\/a> in the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill was announced.<\/strong><\/p>\n

December 2014 update: BP – and other oil companies – are ‘restructuring’ and downsizing<\/a>. Good people who work in fossil fuel companies have a right to clean energy jobs and training of which they can be proud.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s likely that Grasshopper will be around long after BP and other fossil fuel companies have gone.\"Screen<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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This unusual method of reintroduction of Cone Flowers will encourage the arrival of more Cone Flowers, and then other and more varied local life forms, plant and animal, both large and small, hidden and seen.\u00a0Each round<\/span>ed paper drawing contains hundreds of seeds, taken from only a few flowers from last season (some I had started as seeds indoors!).<\/strong><\/p>\n

When new flowers lift up from the soil, Eastern Swallowtail Butterflies, Goldfinches and American Honey Bees will appear. \u00a0No doubt, Grasshoppers will be heard, too. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Hungry predators tend to show up when good food is offered, and sometimes it can be shared amongst different species.\u00a0<\/strong>\"DSC04749\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Or we humans \ud83d\ude09 can trade native flowers and edible plants from our gardens at walkable barter-only farmers markets.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Or a hungry predator can use our food to hide itself while it waits for its meal.<\/strong> \"DSC05974\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Or annual non-native flowers, planted primarily for human delight, become improvised autumn ‘way stations’ or ‘feeding points’ over and over again, for endangered Monarchs on their long, miraculous, journey south.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Or, in midwinter, when the mind struggles with the grayness of loss, an overgrown holly tree (ripe with berries) that leans against a nondescript human house, \u00a0transforms – for the first time – into a place of loud, multi-day survival feasting for all. Over one hundred Robins, Cardinals, American Sparrows and Blackbirds eat away, so that when the snow comes in the following days, their bellies are full. Indoors, we humans conduct a similar ritual. Squeezed snugly around the dining room table – redefining family – we keep sharing surprisingly abundant food and loud conversation.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Below are close-up photos with one Robin:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Or, on a frigid February day, in the shadows of a dying industrial giant, Bethlehem Steel at Sparrows Point, where the Patapsco River meets the Chesapeake Bay, a female and male pair of bufflehead ducks swim and dive for food.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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—–<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most\u00a0everything is a remix<\/a>, so I wasn’t surprised to learn that others make homemade seed paper, but not for such purposes as mine.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My project supports and increases biodiversity through humbly imitating the patient, unpredictable, adaptive, doggedly determined, interdependent, intelligent, and – above all – beautiful design processes of living systems.<\/strong><\/p>\n

—–<\/b><\/p>\n

I envision local damaged places where deadly fossil fuel infrastructure – oil pipelines, tracks carrying coal trains, highways – \u00a0transforms back:<\/strong><\/p>\n

to native meadow<\/strong> \"IMG_20140901_093859\"<\/a> \"IMG_20140901_094600\"<\/a> \"IMG_20140901_094545\"<\/a> \"IMG_20140901_091617\"<\/a> \"IMG_20140901_101007\"<\/a><\/p>\n

and \u00a0orchard<\/strong> \"IMG_20140901_093432\"<\/a> \"IMG_20140901_093556\"<\/a><\/p>\n

to forest<\/strong> \"IMG_20140901_090927\"<\/a><\/p>\n

to\u2026?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whether or not I get to witness such glad evolutions is not my concern.<\/strong><\/p>\n

—–<\/b><\/p>\n

To re-ask Ellen Dissanayake’s question:\u00a0What is art for<\/a>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Or, what tasks do our hands, hearts, and heads desire? Where do we need to be, and why? What material things should we construct, or possess?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Or, how to live out our idealistic, utopian visions? They are likely desperately needed to move us all forward towards a liveable future.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Or, given the urgency of our species extinction, climate change and pollution crisis, how will we defy pessimism, and showcase our collective right to be joyfully regenerative, as per Naomi Klein’s new book<\/a>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Or, how to be\u00a0of use<\/a>,\u00a0as\u00a0<\/em>described by Poet Marge Piercy?<\/strong><\/p>\n

These are my pressing questions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

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—–<\/p>\n

Disappearing Drawings<\/em>\u00a0takes inspiration from so much:<\/strong><\/p>\n