Wow!

It's unbelievable how far we've come! Last night's session was "on fire"! What an explosion of creativity and vitality coming from all participants. The energy is really mounting for our debut performance on April 20th! How exhilarating to be immersed in the sounds, sights, and sensations of all 35 of us expressing!

Next week is our last week - dress rehearsal!

Nicole

Confidence and Commitment

Hi all!

Here are some pictures from our last 3 sessions. It is very exciting that we are coming closer to our performance dates. I am actually feeling a bit nervous about it all - but the process is very rewarding. I can't help but feel that all the time we took in exploration and working in groups and getting to know one another, has helped to make these final sessions run smoothly in terms of collaborating and bringing the pieces together. I know for myself, it's challenging to let go of control and to trust in the process and to follow and shape the emerging images. It's almost like our community group has reached a point where we are confident in our abilities without sacrificing the emotional intent of the peice that is developing. I feel like the work that we have created so far is very touching and is filled with deep commitment and caring. It has been such a joy to work with you all.

Nicole

Excitement building as the project grows

There was a hiatus in posting here through the week of March break, when we did not gather at the Conservatory for our usual evening of collaboration. From some of the emails being exchanged after last week's regrouping to work on the project, it's obvious that it was an exhilarating evening. Unfortunately, I couldn't attend. One of the many hats I'm wearing these days had dominated my life -- the great big storyteller hat that is completely preoccupied now by the 30th Toronto Festival of Storytelling that begins Friday March 28 and continues through to Sunday April 6 all over the city and where I'll be telling environmental stories in a set called "Tales of the Blue Planet."

In that mid-project lull over March break it seems as if people came back to the next gathering inspired by the anticipation of spring despite the continuation of wintry weather. The feeling of powerful connection with the earth and all its elements has proven to work as both an individual and collective creative force, with everybody's art, music, and drama interacting in truly fruitful ways. One participant, inspired by the positive energy of the collaboration last week, afterward sent out messages to others with the idea of naming our performance "Eco Loco: The voice of Gaya Emerging" and quoting the poet Rumi: "Let the beauty we love, be what we do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground. "

I recognize that the people participating in this project are self-selected through their existing concern about and care for the health of the planet where we share our lives, and that no doubt the enthusiasm and creativity that are blossoming on these evenings at the Conservatory are exceptional, are not the "norm", are not reflective of the entire population. Yet when individuals who have been involved with the ecological artmaking for only about 6 weeks have responded by sending this message: "I love the way exploring and expressing the arts" can inspire people about the environment.

Now there's the very real possibility that those who see the perfomance on Earth Day and at the Green Living Show might be infected by the energetic creativity and passionate involvement of our group proclaiming our devotion to planet care.

Tonight I will be with everyone there again, and will report on what we're working on -- in other words, telling the story of how to live well and wisely and creatively on the earth.

Starting to Emerge

Here are some photos of our explorations from Day 4. We are starting to accumulate lots of material that is related to each of the 4 elements and within each arts modality. Our next task is to fold in the local environmental issues that we feel strongly about. Our group energy has a lovely creative feel as we are getting to know one another better and are feeling more comfortable working together creatively. It's wonderful seeing the images emerge as we come together at the end of each session to share what each group has created.

Day Four: Collaborating modes of expression

It's difficult to know how else to describe last Thursday evening's gathering. After a series of vocal and body warm-up exercises from Heather Dick, we again formed three groups. People wanting to work in drama and spoken word went with Heather, others wanting to do visual art went with Nicole -- with Andrea to arrive later -- leaving the large room with all the musical instruments for eleven others to improvise with Rick on a couple of soundscapes.

Having been reading David Rothenberg's book on music and nature, and explored a site on "experimental musical instruments", I opted this time to try collaborating on a soundscape.

Rick led the entire group in a brief session of improvising with a variety of simple small hand-held instruments (none of them as grand -- or wet! -- as in this brief video at http://youtube.com/watch?v=8p1QMEOK50I) before dividing us into two groups. Each group was to take as a theme an element and compose a short piece evoking the actions of that element -- in our case an illustration of a riddle for the sounds of the wind. With about a half -hour time limit to create a soundscape to present to the entire group, the process was an intensely involving blend of spontaneity, experimentation, and collaboration that all somehow came together very effectively.

When all three groups convened and presented what we'd worked on, it seemed as if the components of a larger piece were actually starting to take shape. The performance piece inspired by the element of Earth was charged with energy. The visual constructions are still exploratory, for they require a lot more time to make, but what has been built to date indicates that the visuals will be responsive, as will the music, to the voice and movement of the drama group, and that the drama group in turn will be able to incorporate the other modes of expression into what they've begun to develop.

Given that only six more weeks remain to create the ultimate piece, we are each to select a modality (soundscape, drama, visual art) to focus on for the rest of the project. My initial notion was to work with voice and drama, since they relate to my storytelling. However, the soundscape session completely captured my curiosity. I'd never before attempted anything like the experience of shaping sounds in a group: it's exciting and engages not only close listening but a connection with body and imagination I hadn't anticipated.

Day Three: "It was an amazing evening"

The third gathering of the group for ecological artmaking was one week ago, February 21, so this posting is late indeed. A persistent flu virus has kept me cloistered indoors for nearly two weeks, and though tonight's forecast of extremely cold weather is daunting, I don't want to miss this evening's activities.

The morning after the third gathering I had an email from one of the participants:

"We missed you this evening, it was an amazing evening similar to last week as we spent the first little bit creating a thunderstorm with percussion, and then broke off for forty five minutes to various medias and elements. Once again reuniting at the end to bring together the process and discuss ideas."

The creative energy of the people involved in this project is one of the best antidotes I know to the creeping despair that can settle into one's soul after reading about the damage being done to the planet. I try to balance my reading between the "factual" material from writers who are keeping tabs on the current state of the world, and those who, while acknowledging the crisis, make it their task to make a deeper connection with the natural world and find creative ways to engage with issues.

The thought of that percussive thunderstorm last week has remained with me for the promise that such sounds offer of rain and wind for a thirsty earth. For all that our winter of heavy snow has seemed endless, all that white stuff will soon be water. Since only 2% of the earth's water is not saline, we have treasure heaped up outdoors in the form of snow banks.

Much of my reading the past couple of weeks has been generally about environmental art, and more specifically about water and our increasing need for it to be clean, healthy and abundant.

David Rothenberg's Book of Music and Nature is not expressly about water as an element but recognizes the musical qualities of moving water and the world's largest creatures -- the whales -- who live in that element and make their music there. In his introduction Rothenberg writes, "With only a little effort, the whole world can be heard as music." Even stones -- Icelandic composer Elias Davidsson has explored the sounds of stones gathered at different geographical locations.

The soundscape component of our eco-art making is proving to be a way of pulling together all the other creations inspired by the four elements we'll be focused on.

Day Two explorations: words, soundscape, visual

The photographs taken by Nicole and posted for Day Two (our second week of getting together) capture some of the collaborations resulting from our first time focusing on particular elements.

Andrea set up fabrics and paints in the large room for one group to create visual responses to Water. In the same room Rick worked with another group to put together a soundscape evocative of Fire. I was in yet another group in a nearby small room with Nicole to create word and voice impressions of Earth and Air and their effect on us.

Nicole provided us with basic materials -- coloured paper, scissors, and markers -- and in our two smaller groupings of two people coming up with words we associate with Air, and three of us doing the same with Earth, we each created simple small cut-paper patches of words/phrases expressing our impressions of these elements. These we laid out and composed, quilt-like, on the floor as a text that we then played with, arranged and rearranged into a piece lending itself to voicing and performance. After a couple of run-throughs of each brief performance of Air and Earth, we rejoined the others in the big room . . . . and walked into a space brilliantly transformed visually and filled with sound.

The people working with fabric had, in the space of barely an hour, created a vast blue fabric net with green/blue strips suspended from it so that the entire construction could be lifted in our hands and set in motion. Others had painted fabric with giant fish that are to become part of this Waterscape.

The group working with Rick had put together a soundscape of percussion and didgeridoo capturing the crackling and movement of flame. When the sound and visuals were put together, it seemed to many of us that the dynamics of the soundscape composition, with some adaptations, could in many ways easily accompany the movement of water.

The five of us who had prepared the "patchwork" texts performed our compositions: Air alive with movement, and Earth . . . .more earthbound, more grounded, evoking connection and fertility.

This was the first experience of small group collaboration coming together at the end of the evening with promise of further developments. Most amazing was how swiftly and intently everything had come together so far. I went home on the subway reflecting on the ability of a newly formed and diverse batch of people coming together with such inspired enthusiasm and, even at such an early stage, such exciting pieces to offer.

Next week -- week three -- Heather will join us and work with a group focusing this time on Fire and Water. Andrea will set up a visual arts area for working on aspects of Air, and Rick's soundscape will be for Earth.

So much of my reading on environmental and ecological art has been about projects that are more a response to a particular environmental issue, or landscape, often initiated by individual artists, or groups of citizens, who motivate and involve the community associated with that issue or landscape. The artist(s) and community explore creative ways to make a positive change to the state of the environment they are concerned with or to raise public awareness about the issue. Such activities often occur out-of-doors in some sort of natural setting, or if in an urban setting, are intended to evoke or reclaim nature. I wondered how this project at the Conservatory would compare with such projects, for we are undertaking an ecological artmaking experience in a large plain room, in an old school of standard, bleak institutional/educational design, which is in turn situated in a densely populated urbanized neighbourhood across the street from a huge shopping mall. I couldn't imagine this project having any effect on its immediate environment.

Yet if that "immediate environment" in that old building comes alive so vibrantly after one hour of creative work by a group of people committed to exploring their response to ecological issues, then maybe what we're seeing is the power of the imagination to transform where we actually are at that moment and expressive of what we care about on this planet.

Day Two

Here are a couple of pics from our second session where we explored a soudscape for FIRE as well as some visual arts aspects of WATER. At this point we are exploring and generating ideas for how to express each of the four elements. We will see how we will bring these expressions together further into the process.

Our first pics

Hi all!

How wonderful to have met all of you at our first session on Thursday! I look forward to a very exciting collaborative art making process with such a warm group. I am including some pictures from the first day. I'll include more as things develop. See you on Thursday!

Nicole

Meeting and beginning: part 2

The first part of Meeting and Beginning was mostly my impressionistic response to the first evening of the ecological artmaking project at the RCM. Now when I look back at the notes I made, there's so much more to record about the artists, the people who came to the first session, and the way the project will take shape.

By my count, there were 31 people in the room, including --

Nicole Arends, the Community Programs Leader of the RCM's Learning Through the Arts project; Rick Monaco, musician -- a hand drummer and percussionist who not only plays drums but makes them;
Andrea Pillar, visual artist specializing in ceramics.

Each of these facilitators have considerable background in working with community groups.

The other participants include people of all ages and backgrounds. Friends have come together, also some family groups who want to work together.

A third artist who will be involved in the project is Heather Dick, whose area is drama and creative writing. Since she can't be with us for the first week or two, she introduced herself in a video. She asked each person there to write down ("in 25 words or less") what excites us about ecology/the environment and what aspects we would like to explore. The list of responses from that evening have already been sent out to all the participants and the words that recur reflect what each person said by way of introducing ourselves to the entire group and identifiying which of the four elements ~ air, earth, fire, water ~ we felt at the time most attuned to:

Restoration. Regeneration. Exploration. Honouring our environment. Setting a new paradigm. Eating locally. Remaining conscious and conscientious. Interconnection. Collaboration and connectedness. Interdependence. Beauty. Other living organisms. Balance. Infinite complexity. Our earth and all its wonder. Healing and creating. Learning from natural cycles. Diversity. Global ecosystem.

With such a rich vocabulary from the outset and a framework in place, we'll be encouraging each other to play with and prompt our creativty. We'll have six more weeks to give shape, in any media, to all our dreams about and desires for the ecosystem followed by three weeks of putting all the elements together into a shape we can take to Earth Day Festivities April 20 and the Green Living Show April 25 t0 27.

Meeting and beginning

Yesterday evening on Croatia St. at the Royal Conservatory of Music the ecological artmaking project was set in motion -- and it truly was moving: to meet the participants thus far, to hear what each had to say by way of introducing themselves, to discover from the artists involved how it might all come together, and concluding with an eight-part drumfest.

This promises to be an intensely involving and enriching and -- to use a good old-fashioned concept -- fun experience that will not only connect us in our collaborative work with each other but to the elements of nature that we feel connected with.

For this to happen in a sense "out of the blue" for the first time in the largest urban environment in Canada is in itself significant.

There's a lot more I want to record, based on all the notes I scribbled down while it was all happening, but that might have to wait until the weekend when I'll have more time. Meanwhile, in my morning meanderings on the internet, I received my newsletter from Coach House Press in Toronto, and it's always full of worthwhile book news. This time, however, Coach House included a "valentine" for readers in the form of a video excerpt from the film, American Beauty (which I have yet to see even on DVD), called "so much beauty in the world". At only 2:38 long, it is simply lovely to watch a plastic bag dancing in the wind with dry leaves. After yesterday evening, and seeing what resulted from the initial spark to draw and write on huge sheets of cloth how we each in that brief time responded to the four elements* -- earth, air, water, fire -- that we'll be working with over the remaining nine weeks, I wanted to add the link to this snippet of video for others to watch. It seems to me that there was a sense last night in what everybody said, and drew and wrote, of deep caring for all the beauty in the world that needs honouring and protecting, no matter how slight and simple it might be: plastic bag, frogspawn, weeds pushing their way through concrete, and so very much more.

*the fifth "element" we were reminded we would be exploring, would be the human element: ourselves, and our involvement with all the others. But in this case "the fifth element" does NOT refer to the film of that name, even though it is one I've greatly enjoyed.

Ecological Artmaking Community Project

When Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Music sent out a flyer inviting participation in a new project of its Active Ecology Program, I signed up immediately.

For several years I've been following the work of artists involved in environmental artmaking, beginning with Andy Goldsworthy's books and more recently, the documentary film of his work, Rivers and Tides.

In 1999 I took part in a workshop in Toronto with Basia Irland, the sculptor who has devoted nearly thirty years exploring waterways in various personal and community interactions. As the prologue to her new book, Water Library, states her involvement: "she makes art that plots the mysteries of water." In the Toronto workshop, organized by The Milkweed Collective , Basia led us in a ritual to honour the Don River, a process she describes in her book (p. 91) as "renewing our kinship with the river and its urban environment." She has involved many other groups and communties in to bring awareness to rivers, streams, and watersheds.

My continuing involvement with The Milkweed Collective artists and their exhibitions at the Neilson Park Community Centre in Etobicoke not only revived for me my previous work as an art teacher and gallery curator in Saskatchewan, but inspired me to explore further, beginning with Suzi Gablik's The Reenchantment of Art -- a book I consider essential reading for the future of working creatively in our rapidly changing culture. My own experiences of making art have been limited to projects with fellow Milkweed artists; extensive reading has deepened my interest.

Now the prospect of taking part in the RCM project promises to engage not only my thought processes but intensify my active involvement.

Nicole Arends, the Director of the Active Ecology Program, has arranged for three artists to work for ten weeks with 45 participants of all ages to create a large scale installation and performance art piece based around an ecological issue. The completed piece will be exhibited and performed April 20 at Earth Day Canada festivities at Downsview Park during the day and at The Royal Conservatory of Music the same evening, and again at Toronto's Green Living Show from April 25-27.

The process is intended as a pilot project for exploring and connecting with environment issues throught the arts, and through community involvement.

As well as taking part in what looks like an exciting project, I want to document how it happens. There is a wealth of information on the Green Museum web site about public participation in creating ecological art -- all of it inspiring and none of it reflecting Canadian experiences. There are web sites devoted to environmental artmaking in European countries: again, I have yet to find a site recording work relevant to Canada's environment.

The RCM project may be a valuable model for involving so many people in an urban setting on a single major project.

It seemed a worthwhile idea for me to set up a blog and invite all my fellow participants -- including the artists -- and any happenstance visitors to the site, to add their comments over the next ten weeks. I expect the project will create a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of ideas and environmental concerns, a lot of questions, and posting them as comments here would make them known to anyone checking this blog.

After each Thursday evening gathering to work on the Ecological Art Project, I will devote a post from my experience. I will also post anything I come across in my reading that might seem relevant to what we'll all be working on. Comments are invited to any posting, for everyone to see.

I'm looking forward to meeting fellow participants next Thursday night -- have no idea what we'll do, or how we'll do it; how messy or how chaotic the process will be, but do expect it might open a world of possibilities.