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AHN INTERVIEW:
Mary Montcastle Eubank
"Yes, I do believe that art can be a catalyst for healingÉI believe that art and visual images can have a powerful physical, psychic and spiritual effect on the viewerÉ Because our earth environment is quite literally our home, images related to the environment can touch us deeply and be particularly compelling." -Mary Montcastle Eubank
Gallery Route One storefront on
Main Street in Pt. Reyes Station, CA.
photo: Tim Graveson
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Mary Montcastle Eubank is an artist and Project Space Co-Director of Gallery Route One, a membership non-profit art organization in Point Reyes, CA. Her work at Gallery Route One includes co-directing the environmental exhibition and projects program called With the Earth. This summer, With the Earth is sponsoring, California Current, a series of exhibitions and educational events in the San Francisco Bay Area that address issues of ocean health and productivity. The hope is that these events will spark dialogue with people living up and down the Pacific Coast and encourage people to take action to protect the health of the ocean and the vast web of creatures living within it. Danny Hobson, Director of the Arts and Healing Network, interviewed Mary in May about With the Earth, California Current, and the healing power of art.
Danny Hobson: What inspired the creation of the With the Earth Program at Gallery Route One?
Mary Montcastle Eubank: Gallery Route One was founded in 1983, but it was not until after we presented a large environmental exhibition project in 1990 called What Have We Got To Lose that we decided to create the With the Earth Program. What Have We Got To Lose introduced us to many artists working in the environmental arena and was very exciting. Because it reflected my own interests as an artist and someone alive on this wonderful planet, I began to think about continuing this environmental programming focus. With the Earth has given us a central programming theme that provides opportunities to network and support environmental artists while offering a larger service to the world. I created the name With the Earth because I thought of us as working interdependently and in concert with the earth. |
Danny: Could you share some of the gallery projects that have been created as part of With the Earth.
Worm Plates created by students
at West Marin School as part of the 2002
With the Earth project, called
Turning the Tables: Food, Farms and Sustainability.
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Mary: The With the Earth Program then continued with approximately four to five shows a year, including educational programs such as gallery talks, the Artists in the Schools program, and special projects like environmental symposia. In the last few years the program has grown in sophistication and outreach. For example, in 2001, we presented On the Edge: Intersections and Interactions, a two month long interdisciplinary exhibition project that explored the regional coast and issues affecting it. It included shows at Gallery Route One and at the National Seashore visitor centers, a walking tour led by project artist Dan McCormick of our creek restoration project with West Marin School students and the Park Service, and a panel discussion on the political issues at our local community center.
Three years ago we decided to create an annual artist residency program using a local resource, the Permaculture Institute of Northern California, located in Point Reyes, as a site for selected artists to learn and work. We have been able to conduct this program on a small budget, because unlike a true residency we do not house and feed the artist, who must live close enough to be able to commute to the Institute. The residency part consists of the artist being able to spend as much time on the site (with assistance from the Institute staff) as he or she needs, in order to develop the work for a show at Gallery Route One.
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Danny: Tell me about your latest project, California Current.
Mary: California Current will start in May and continue through September 2005. This will be a series of exhibitions and events in many venues throughout Marin County and extending to San Francisco and will include not only the art exhibitions, but also a school project and an educational seminar. California Current will address issues around ocean health and productivity and will also highlight and celebrate the life of the regional marine community that stretches from the coast along Washington State south to the Baja Peninsula. The California current is a rich oceanic region, and we are using it to serve as an informing image, and a metaphor for examining environmental policy, resource use and other aspects of our relationship to the oceans.
Diana Marto performing with cast paper sculpture in her
participatory ceremony, Honoring the Whales, which will be
part of California Current. This performance will be held at
the Bay Model Visitor Center in Sausalito, CA after the
reception for the exhibition, Sea Change, on June 4, 2005.
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We are presenting major exhibits at Falkirk Cultural Center in San Rafael, the Bay Model Visitors Center in Sausalito, at our own gallery and the West Marin School project at TobyÕs Feed Barn & Gallery in Point Reyes. Numerous satellite exhibits and events, including one at the Headlands Art Center in Sausalito and the Thoreau Center for Sustainability in San Francisco, will take place under the California Current umbrella. We also hope to have an informational presence at the United Nations World Environmental Day Conference in San Francisco at the Presidio on June 1-5.
All grades at the West Marin School are involved in developing work for California Current, which will consist of an underwater installation at TobyÕs Feed Barn & Gallery in Point Reyes, CA. Art teachers, a poet/writer, and a naturalist have been working with the students over several months in order to develop the various components of the installation, all of which will be based on scientific and historical research. Students have gone on field trips to marine areas for first hand study, art making and recording.
We have been working on this project for two years, and in the process we have done a great deal of networking and conferencing, making new friends and developing new collaborations. We also have met and talked with a range of scientists in the attempt to make the art and the exhibits as science based as possible. This is our most ambitious project to date, and it is our hope that the scope of it will draw increased attention to the issues around ocean sustainability.
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Danny: Do you believe that art can be a catalyst for environmental healing?
Floating Fire, a site-specific installation by Zakary Zide.
This piece was created during his Gallery Route One
sponsored residency at the Permaculture Institute's
Sky Water site near Garberville, CA in 2004.
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Mary: Yes, I do believe that art can be a catalyst for healing. It would help if we had a public that was better educated in the visual arts and knew how to relate to images. So often a superficial attention or outright rejection of images and their content gets in the way of a deeper contemplation that in many cases could initiate a healing process. This issue is one that is particularly important to me. I believe that art and visual images can have a powerful physical, psychic and spiritual effect on the viewer. If we were aware of how to consciously allow that process to take place in a positive way art would have a far more important place in our society and one that is not just related to money. As humans the imagination is one of our most important faculties. Because our earth environment is quite literally our home images related to the environment can touch us deeply and be particularly compelling. I think of the blue planet as seen from space as a prime example.
Danny: How do you maintain the great work that you are doingÉ.financially and creatively?
Mary: Collaboration is the secret. There are many of us working together and without that group effort it couldnÕt happen, at least not in the same lively way that it has existed. I work very closely on all of the programming with Zea Morvitz, my co-director and an artist with many skills. Toni Littlejohn is an artist and art teacher who has developed our Artists in the Schools program with great imagination, devotion and ingenuity, and artist Betty Woolfolk has guided the membership side and much of the fundraising of the organization with intelligence and grace. We have all been close friends for years and still have fun working together.
Artists like Judith Selby Lang, who are not part of our organization but work with us as project coordinators have brought their talents and energy to our special projects like On the Edge, Turning the Tables and California Current. The artist members supply ongoing assistance in every area, and we have a dedicated and creative board that has taken fundraising very seriously and has helped us take on ever larger and more ambitious projects, such as California Current.
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Home Again, Home Again,
an art installation created by Judith Selby Lang and Richard Lang using a chair, table, and lamp,
covered with plastic collected from Kehoe Beach,
Point Reyes National Seashore. This pieces will
be on display as a part of California Current
at Gallery Route One, Pt. Reyes, CA.
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Personally I maintain the work in several ways. First of all, as I mentioned environmental issues are very important to me. I live in an exceptionally beautiful place on the edge of the Point Reyes National Seashore, one that is wild and protected and that I love. This place is a rich resource for me as an artist and inspires me to work for the environment everywhere. And our community is one that is environmentally aware and engaged. It is a lot of work to maintain our program, keeping it fresh and exciting and financially viable, but I have felt over the years absolutely dedicated to doing it. When you believe in what you are doing it is easier to find the energy, time and creativity to do it. Also as an artist who often works alone in a studio I like the balance of working collaboratively with other artists on important issues that effect our world. I believe that this work nourishes me and keeps me mentally, spiritually and creatively healthy.
Danny: What advice do you have for artists who would like to use their work to make a positive impact on the environment?
Mary: I suggest that an artist inform him or herself on the environmental topics or issues that feel most important or most significant. Find a specific focus and find some support for this interest. From our experience more and more artists are looking at environmental issues as content for their work. For women, the Women Environmental Artists Directory (WEAD), a national registry of women artists working in this arena, is a good place to look. Our organization periodically sends out a call in Artweek for artists to participate in special exhibition projects that we are doing and other organizations and institutions do the same.
Basically I would suggest that an artist just start in and begin making the work. If you focus on what deeply interests you and what you feel is important, the rest will follow. And I think that when you do this you will be led in ways that you never anticipated or imagined and that is where the magic is, and perhaps the healing.
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To learn more about California Current, please visit Gallery Route One's web site www.galleryrouteone.org or visit www.greenmuseum.org. You could also call Gallery Route One at 415-663-1347 and request a printed announcement to be mailed to you.
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FEATURED BOOK
Women Environmental Artists Directory
Produced by Jo Hanson and Susan Leibovitz Steinman
 In late 2004, a new updated edition of the Women Environmental Artists Directory (WEAD) was published and it is better than ever. This is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in environmental art. It includes over 180 listings of women artists who are healing the earth with their creativity. Each listing includes a black and white photo of the artist's work, a personal statement, and contact information. Presented all together these listings provide a rich overview of the state of environmental art at this time including community based projects, reclamation projects, wildlife habitat reconstruction, and temporary site specific installations. The book begins with a brief introduction about environmental art, an article on using earth safe art materials, and a list of resources such as books and web sites. For examples of artists listed, please see the featured links below. This 107-page paperback was published by WEAD in 2004 and sells for $12 a copy plus postage and handling. For more information about the Women Enviromental Artists Directory, please visit www.weadartists.org. To order a copy, please contact wead@steinmanstudio.com.
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FEATURED LINK
WEAD Artist: Jackie Brookner
www.jackiebrookner.net
 As Jackie writes, "My living sculptures, called Biosculptures, are evocative, plant based systems that clean polluted water, integrating ecological revitalization with the conceptual, metaphoric and aesthetic capacites of sculpture. These projects raise community awareness of the urgency of restoring aquatic ecosystems, encourage the necessary imagining of a world where human and other than human systems are mutually beneficial, and help create the public will to protect and restore these resources."
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FEATURED LINK
WEAD Artist: Basia Irland
www.unm.edu/~basia/BIRLAND/
 As Basia describes, "I create international and regional interdisciplinary water projects." She has published a book about her work that can be read online at her web site. Chapters include: Hydrolibros, A Natural History of Salt, Receiving Rain, Non-potable Aqua, Stars, Tides and Ice, A Gathering of Waters, and Holy Water. Each chapter describes various art projects she has done along those themes, most of which address environmental issues pertaining to water such as pollution, rivers, and rainwater harvesting.
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FEATURED LINK
WEAD Artist: Aviva Rahmani
www.ghostnets.com
 As Aviva explains, "As an ecological artist, I work collaboratively with teams of scientists, landscape artists, city planners, academics and activists to restore degraded enviroments internationally and discover innovative approaches to problems." Visit her web site to learn more about two very innovative projects - Ghost Nets and Cities and Oceans of If.
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CALL FOR ENTRY
The Drop: An Exhibition Concerning Water and the Environment
Entries Due: September 1, 2005
 In the winter of 2006, Exit Art in New York City will present an exhibition devoted to water and its role in the global environment. Exit Art is seeking projects that will foster discourse and urgently respond to this timely issue. All media welcome. For more information, please email drop@exitart.org |
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READERS RESPOND
Please send your thoughts and feedback on this month's news page to ahn@artheals.org. We would love to hear from you.
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