Sept 11, 2016
Jeanette Hart-Mann
8 Quarters for a 15 minute peep show of the Colorado River
Showing posts with label Jeanette Hart-Mann. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jeanette Hart-Mann. Show all posts
September 17, 2016
8 Quarters for a 15 minute peep show of the Colorado River
Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell, Page, Arizona
Sept 11, 2016
Jeanette Hart-Mann
8 Quarters for a 15 minute peep show of the Colorado River
Sept 11, 2016
Jeanette Hart-Mann
8 Quarters for a 15 minute peep show of the Colorado River
January 11, 2016
Ucross A Portait in Place
Ucross A Portrait in Place
Friday, January 22
Opening reception 3pm
Panel Discussion 4pm
Yale University
School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
Kroon Hall
195 Prospect Street
New Haven, CT
In 2013, a group of artists, originally connected through the Land Arts of the American West program at the University of New Mexico, intersected with a group of ecologists from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies in Ucross, Wyoming (population 25). The collaboration that formed over the past three years brought the language of contemporary art to an investigation of Ucross. Artists and ecologists worked together to target specific aspects of Ucross knowing that the joint exhibition would provide a synthesis, a unified portrait in place. Following a successful gallery show at the Ucross Foundation art gallery in Wyoming, the group is thrilled to bring the show out of its place of origin, and honored to share Ucross: A Portrait in Place with students, faculty, staff, and community at F&ES and Yale University.
Charlie Bettigole
Cynthia Brinich-Langlois
Bill Gilbert
Jeanette Hart-Mann
Yoshi Hayashi
Joesph Mougel
Cedra Wood
October 8, 2015
Hózhóogo Naasháadoo
By Jeanette Hart-Mann
Dinetah
September 25, 2015
During the fall we spend time investigating critical issues facing the region and the communities whose homes are here. A new focus for this year was taking a closer look at resource extraction in the Four Corners region and specifically in Dinétah, the Navajo Nation which is ground zero for much of this activity. But this is not where it ends for these are issues that we all must face. We were blessed to have several Diné guides for this journey who took us into their homes across this big country to experience, first hand, the “cover-up,” that has occurred over the last century and that which continues into the present from uranium, coal, and oil/gas/fracking. Thank you Anna Rondon with the Navajo Birth Cohort Study, Larry Emerson, educator and farmer, Malcolm Benally, author of Bitter Water, and Etta Arviso of the Eastern Navajo Agency; who are all compassionate leaders and warriors willing to share these many stories of colonial oppression and share the strength of their culture and Blessing Way of healing, creation, harmony, and peace.
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| Cornfields next to fracking pads |
Timeline:
September 22, Gather
Larry prepares us for our journey and teaches us to be present, have an open heart, and have no prior intentions. We perform a Sunset Ceremony and learn to feed our ancestors and give thanks for our food. We learn to be grounded in our love and be warriors against the dominance of colonial culture.
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| Basecamp at Larry's educational permaculture site |
September 23, Uranium
Anna Rondon takes us to visit Monument Valley, Rare Metals Superfund Site, Tuba City, Moenkopi, Moenavi Dinosaur Tracks.
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| Anna talking about Rare Metals Superfund site |
September 24, Coal
Anna Rondon takes us to visit Canyon de Chelley, Chinle, and then to meet Malcolm Benally at Big Mountain to see Black Mesa and the Peabody Coal site.
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| Malcolm introducing us to the blasting area |
September 25, Oil/Gas Fracking
Larry takes us to meet Etta and she takes us on a driving tour of Eastern Agency patchwork, Counselor, and fracking sites near springs, houses, and schools.
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| Etta and Larry talking at a fracking site |
This quick blog entry serves as a starting point for a much longer process of reflection and cultivation involving what I learned during this investigation along with the question of how art is an active catalyst for change and how creativity throughout culture builds capacity to re-think and re-enact our lives in the world.
Looking at these complex environmental justice issues I know that ground zero is located in the Four Corners region, but we all play a role. Uranium, coal, oil and gas, like all their toxic constituents, are moving through our lives in both microscopic and macroscopic ways. As shifting scales between minuscule and immense they permeate local, regional, continental, and global worlds. It is all about power.
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| Peabody Coal, ironically demands safety |
Artists can make a difference and the work they do performs far beyond the boundaries of any frame. As this investigation is peeled back its potential is held in the strength of healing and creation, of the individual and the collective to question power that poisons the world and find ways to walk in beauty together.
In February, Land Arts of the American West artists will be exhibiting a collaborative work about this investigation in partnership with the individuals and organizations we worked during our time in Dinétah. We will be posting more information about this in January.
Below are more images from these four days of intense provocation |
| Cars cars cars and vehicle tours at Monument Valley |
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| At the view, Monument Valley |
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| Framing similarities, Monument Valley |
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| Remember plants, "They are alive....," Monument Valley |
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| Rare Metals reclamation "cover-up" |
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| Moenkopi farms |
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| Peabody Coal |
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| Peabody Coal ironically demands more safety |
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| Leaking community water-fill station |
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| Peabody Coal conveyor |
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| Peabody Coal conveyor, close-up |
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| Fracking waste water treatment in Counselor |
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| Industry trucks on community roads |
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| Peering out from a sacred spring |
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| Sarah filming perimeter with GoPro |
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| Development stakes |
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| Warrior spear. |
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| More development |
October 6, 2015
El Vado and Artists In Place
By Jeanette Hart-Mann
El Vado
September 22, 2015
Our El Vado site is generously situated at Bill Gilbert’s cabin, whose family and friends built it about 25 years ago. It’s a great site for Land Arts because it provides a solid roof over our heads if the weather gets rough and/or if the art/ists get really embedded in their work and find themselves literally covered in the muddy swill of this lakeside attraction.
This fall was particularly chilly with cools reaching almost freezing. Throughout the night the forest was alive with coyotes howling and elk bugling. A most bizarre chorus of sounds impossible to visualize into physical animal form. The culminating sound does not equate with any creature I can represent, but inhabits a surreal space of true animal dialogues and relations known only to them.
El Vado lake is just south of Heron Lake and both bodies of water are managed for the plumbing use of several New Mexico municipalities, hydroelectricity, acequias and farmers, rafters, speedboaters, and of course us. I would also like to think that the river (its still there trying to meander through the innards of what is now lake) and its riparian counterparts are also a part of this wheeling deal to make sure everyone has enough water.
As a ruffian rabble of artists we jump head first into this physical space and respond through a series of both planned and spontaneous actions. In particular the water and mud itself is the main attraction. Over the four days artists were busy creating performative gestures, working together to move water hand to hand over the land, scavenging materials to build a boat enabling a floating tea ceremony, digging holes, painting, and walking transects across large areas of the lake. This and much more.
Visiting artist Alan Boldon also joined us for several days on site, sharing an evening presentation about the creative work he is doing all over the world bringing people from diverse backgrounds together to discover creative solutions as agents in place and with other. On the 20th he led us on a walking workshop where we learned more about one another and shared stories of place. After this we spent an afternoon working collaboratively to compose improv sculptural installations in place with found materials and our bodies.
El Vado
September 22, 2015
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| Artist at work in El Vado Lake |
Our El Vado site is generously situated at Bill Gilbert’s cabin, whose family and friends built it about 25 years ago. It’s a great site for Land Arts because it provides a solid roof over our heads if the weather gets rough and/or if the art/ists get really embedded in their work and find themselves literally covered in the muddy swill of this lakeside attraction.
This fall was particularly chilly with cools reaching almost freezing. Throughout the night the forest was alive with coyotes howling and elk bugling. A most bizarre chorus of sounds impossible to visualize into physical animal form. The culminating sound does not equate with any creature I can represent, but inhabits a surreal space of true animal dialogues and relations known only to them.
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| Disappearing water of El Vado |
El Vado lake is just south of Heron Lake and both bodies of water are managed for the plumbing use of several New Mexico municipalities, hydroelectricity, acequias and farmers, rafters, speedboaters, and of course us. I would also like to think that the river (its still there trying to meander through the innards of what is now lake) and its riparian counterparts are also a part of this wheeling deal to make sure everyone has enough water.
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| Preparing for a day of art |
As a ruffian rabble of artists we jump head first into this physical space and respond through a series of both planned and spontaneous actions. In particular the water and mud itself is the main attraction. Over the four days artists were busy creating performative gestures, working together to move water hand to hand over the land, scavenging materials to build a boat enabling a floating tea ceremony, digging holes, painting, and walking transects across large areas of the lake. This and much more.
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| CB, painting with her Wengerian easel |
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| Eleanora's water transfer project, with LAAW crew |
Visiting artist Alan Boldon also joined us for several days on site, sharing an evening presentation about the creative work he is doing all over the world bringing people from diverse backgrounds together to discover creative solutions as agents in place and with other. On the 20th he led us on a walking workshop where we learned more about one another and shared stories of place. After this we spent an afternoon working collaboratively to compose improv sculptural installations in place with found materials and our bodies.
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| Alan Boldon |
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| Kacie, mobilized during our collaborative project with Alan Boldon |
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| The entire crew of LAAW artists engaged in place |
September 7, 2015
Erosive Forces
Erosive Forces
By Jeanette Hart-Mann
September 7, 2015
At Cebolla Canyon, New Mexico, artist Teri Rueb joined our crew for several days running a soundscape workshop and presenting her work via solar-mini-projector-wonder. Literally out in the woods. Quietly we listened to the sounds of this site building maps of what we hear through facsimiles of utterances, shapes, textures, and space, relationships between I and other.
The week was filled with inspiration from artists, crumbling homesteads, rock ruins, erosion, and elk hunters. Even though this site is an old familiar one, there is still much unknown. For example, the arroyo in Cebolla Canyon is just such a thing. Its scale is immense, with walls over 25’ and probably 6+ miles long. It is shocking to think that this represents the current level of groundwater in the area. Having moved 25+’ under. Almost like a burial. Never to be brought back with roots tapped out and struggling to reach those depths.
Curiosity got the best of us as we decided to take a grand journey up canyon to find the beginning. The head-cut of the arroyo grande. Sort of like a colonial expedition we eventually did stumble upon it, but only as we were relocating “Mary” the rattlesnake and moving her away from our cook tent and driving her 2 miles up-canyon in a trashcan. I think she appreciated it and so did we.
The head of the arroyo turned out to be the location of a large restoration earthwork made of bleach-black lava rock, a white granite-like stone and designed by Bill Zeedyk. It was massive and I wished I were a raven, or 'gag' a drone, to capture the birdseye view from above of the black and white fan-like design. As a intervention to slow erosion, it berms-up the head under massive boulders and slows the water and soil run-off draining into the channel. It ultimately keeps the head cut from moving up canyon. But the question still remains, how can something so massively distructive be fixed?
By Jeanette Hart-Mann
September 7, 2015
At Cebolla Canyon, New Mexico, artist Teri Rueb joined our crew for several days running a soundscape workshop and presenting her work via solar-mini-projector-wonder. Literally out in the woods. Quietly we listened to the sounds of this site building maps of what we hear through facsimiles of utterances, shapes, textures, and space, relationships between I and other.
The week was filled with inspiration from artists, crumbling homesteads, rock ruins, erosion, and elk hunters. Even though this site is an old familiar one, there is still much unknown. For example, the arroyo in Cebolla Canyon is just such a thing. Its scale is immense, with walls over 25’ and probably 6+ miles long. It is shocking to think that this represents the current level of groundwater in the area. Having moved 25+’ under. Almost like a burial. Never to be brought back with roots tapped out and struggling to reach those depths.
Curiosity got the best of us as we decided to take a grand journey up canyon to find the beginning. The head-cut of the arroyo grande. Sort of like a colonial expedition we eventually did stumble upon it, but only as we were relocating “Mary” the rattlesnake and moving her away from our cook tent and driving her 2 miles up-canyon in a trashcan. I think she appreciated it and so did we.
The head of the arroyo turned out to be the location of a large restoration earthwork made of bleach-black lava rock, a white granite-like stone and designed by Bill Zeedyk. It was massive and I wished I were a raven, or 'gag' a drone, to capture the birdseye view from above of the black and white fan-like design. As a intervention to slow erosion, it berms-up the head under massive boulders and slows the water and soil run-off draining into the channel. It ultimately keeps the head cut from moving up canyon. But the question still remains, how can something so massively distructive be fixed?
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| Arial image of earthwork before its construction (photo Google) |
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| On earthwork looking down arroyo (photo jhm) |
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| Earthwork closeup (photo jhm) |
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| Cebolla Arroyo (photo jhm) |
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| Discovered natural clay ball (photo jhm) |
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| Clay ball broken (photo jhm) |
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| Teri Reub discussing listening with the body (photo jhm) |
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| One Sandy Wash troupe perparing for performance (photo jhm) |
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| On top of Cebolla (photo jhm) |
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| On top of Cebolla (photo jhm) |
August 29, 2015
Underworld
Underworld
By Jeanette Hart-Mann
August 29, 2015
Horseshoe Canyon is technically part of western Canyonlands National Park, but it is cut off from that playground of mountain bikers, backpackers, all-terrain vehicles, rock climbers, rafters, and sportsters, etc, etc. by the Green River and a complex series of elevated canyons, buttes, and plateaus….and really rough roads. And thank the gods for that.
In this remote, inhospitable, secluded, and quiet place you are on your own. Hidden in plain sight and not to be found via the traditional long view of the western sublime. The canyon cuts down, down, down, into the underworld of the San Rafael Desert. And you don’t know your there until you step over the edge and into a series of intricate canyons reclaiming their spring fed riparian bottoms. Unless of course you are a raven.
I have been here many times before and perhaps even many times before that. To walk the canyon and spend time with the plants along the intermittent wash and visit the many historic rock paintings, which are somehow surprising, shocking and soothing all at the same time. The first time I visited Horseshoe was in 1999 with a great mentor and painters painter, John Wenger. He brought his students to this site to think deeply about these paintings and compare the makers of these figurations of story, ceremony, and time with the contemporary painters we wanted to be.
What’s ironic is these paintings did shape who I am as an artist. But not by making me into a painter. Rather these profoundly intricate articulations opened up my perception to the art of life as it is at play in the world. Active and in context with its environment, its time and space, and with all the many who become both its reader and author.
While visiting today, Paula asked me, “Do you see something different every time you come here?” Yes, I suppose I do. This time the canyon was alive like I had never seen it before. The floating figures seemed super bright and were looking out at the lush and vibrant trees, shrubs, and grasses. The wet sand rippled across the floor of the canyon and pools of water gathered the birds, butterflies, frogs, lizards, tracks, and us as we walked.
By Jeanette Hart-Mann
August 29, 2015
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| Peering out of the Alcove (photo jhm) |
Horseshoe Canyon is technically part of western Canyonlands National Park, but it is cut off from that playground of mountain bikers, backpackers, all-terrain vehicles, rock climbers, rafters, and sportsters, etc, etc. by the Green River and a complex series of elevated canyons, buttes, and plateaus….and really rough roads. And thank the gods for that.
In this remote, inhospitable, secluded, and quiet place you are on your own. Hidden in plain sight and not to be found via the traditional long view of the western sublime. The canyon cuts down, down, down, into the underworld of the San Rafael Desert. And you don’t know your there until you step over the edge and into a series of intricate canyons reclaiming their spring fed riparian bottoms. Unless of course you are a raven.
I have been here many times before and perhaps even many times before that. To walk the canyon and spend time with the plants along the intermittent wash and visit the many historic rock paintings, which are somehow surprising, shocking and soothing all at the same time. The first time I visited Horseshoe was in 1999 with a great mentor and painters painter, John Wenger. He brought his students to this site to think deeply about these paintings and compare the makers of these figurations of story, ceremony, and time with the contemporary painters we wanted to be.
What’s ironic is these paintings did shape who I am as an artist. But not by making me into a painter. Rather these profoundly intricate articulations opened up my perception to the art of life as it is at play in the world. Active and in context with its environment, its time and space, and with all the many who become both its reader and author.
While visiting today, Paula asked me, “Do you see something different every time you come here?” Yes, I suppose I do. This time the canyon was alive like I had never seen it before. The floating figures seemed super bright and were looking out at the lush and vibrant trees, shrubs, and grasses. The wet sand rippled across the floor of the canyon and pools of water gathered the birds, butterflies, frogs, lizards, tracks, and us as we walked.
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| Hiking into the canyon (photo jhm) |
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| High wall paintings (photo jhm) |
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| High wall paintings (photo jhm) |
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| Low western paintings (photo jhm) |
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| Alcove (photo jhm) |
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| Alcove paintings and last century tags (photo jhm) |
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| Group lunch in the Alcove (photo jhm) |
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| Group performance in the Alcove (photo jhm) |
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| Looking at the Great Gallery (photo jhm) |
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| Section of the Great Gallery |
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| Melon cutters (photo jhm) |
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| Melon eaters (photo jhm) |
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