LAND ART DAY PESCADERO
September 11, 2011
On September 11, we made land art on Irma Velasquez's 40-acre coastal property. The land is mostly south facing and has open rolling hills, a glimpse of the Pacific ocean and a few areas of coastal scrub. The night before, Judy Johnson-Williams camped in her van on a hillock and was awakened by Alejandro, the coyote, who asked her who she was and why she was sleeping on his turf. Participating in this project were Elise Cheval, Kim Criswell, Ginger Slonaker, Belinda Chlouber, Judy Johnson-Williams, Priscilla Otani, Pantea and Hamid Karimi, Judy Shintani, and Irma Velasquez. We spent most of the day creating individual pieces, then walked the land to see what we had made.
Artists Statements
Elise Cheval
Full Circle. This land art installation was created with flour, sieves of various sizes, an old garden hose and bucket. With red tail hawks, vultures and ravens hovering in the warm wind currents above, I imagined I was an aboriginal artist in the beginnings of time as I printed patterns of lace, connecting me to my own Belgian and Cherokee roots, and the flour from whence it came on the ground in Pescadero.
Judy Johnson-Williams
Earth Beads. I wanted to honor the land literally so I used dirt, adobe, really, mixed with natural straw and sun dried. I used the ample gopher tailings and mixed it with water in a bucket and then kneaded it until it wasn't
sticky and could be shaped into flat medallions or other bead shapes. There wasn't enough time for them to fully dry but they were hard enough so that people could take one home as a moment. Some of them I'm going to attempt to pit-fire to see if I can turn them into real ceramic, tho, admittedly low-fire.
Pantea Karimi
Vegetable Garden. 2011, 7x7 feet, plastic materials and chopsticks. I created Vegetable Garden piece to comment on our manipulated environments caused by man-made additions, and altered natural landscapes due to excessive waste and over consuming unnatural materials.
Priscilla Otani
Wind Traveler. Sacs created from calligraphy paper, filled with seeds, pods, snail shells, dried weeds, pebbles. Each strung with stick and waxed linen thread. The pods make a dry, husky sound when the wind blows through them. Their shapes are reminiscent of breast icons strung by women in Tono. The frail membranes will release their contents on the ground and into the air as the Elements dictate. Inscribed on each is Basho's haiku, the last he wrote before his death:
Tabi ni yande Falling sick on a journey
Yume wa kareno o My dreams circle round and around
Kakemeguru In withered fields
Judy Shintani & Kim Criswell
Flower Power. We worked in collaboration with the land inside a pit-like indentation at the top of a hill that people were calling “the volcano”. Taking our cue from existing vegetation at the bottom of the “volcano”, we created a land flower reminiscent of Flower Power stickers that were popular during the 1960s peace movement. At the center of the pit, dark patches of spent poppy plants grew in a pattern that suggested large petals. We emphasized that image by removing clumps of straw-like wild oat and outlining dark petals with white shale rock. We used violet-colored powdered tempera and sweet yellow dandelions to emphasize the center. We intuitively incorporated the healing qualities of these different elements: later research confirmed dandelions’, poppies’, shale's, and the color purple's medicinal usage for stress, liver, transformation, and balancing. We finished the piece with a small performance, inviting those who wished to join to us at the rim of the “volcano” to cast handfuls of flour into the wind, symbolically releasing whatever we wanted to let go of.
Irma Velasquez
Horse. I used the canvass that spoke to me on the side of a hill. I worked from the image that emerged as I moved the vines that were intertwined between the drying stalks of poison hemlock. I used the hay that was on the hill to build on the image of a horse looking toward the open field. The wind gave the sculpture movement and the light from the setting sun gave it definition from afar.
Elise Cheval
Full Circle. This land art installation was created with flour, sieves of various sizes, an old garden hose and bucket. With red tail hawks, vultures and ravens hovering in the warm wind currents above, I imagined I was an aboriginal artist in the beginnings of time as I printed patterns of lace, connecting me to my own Belgian and Cherokee roots, and the flour from whence it came on the ground in Pescadero.
Judy Johnson-Williams
Earth Beads. I wanted to honor the land literally so I used dirt, adobe, really, mixed with natural straw and sun dried. I used the ample gopher tailings and mixed it with water in a bucket and then kneaded it until it wasn't
sticky and could be shaped into flat medallions or other bead shapes. There wasn't enough time for them to fully dry but they were hard enough so that people could take one home as a moment. Some of them I'm going to attempt to pit-fire to see if I can turn them into real ceramic, tho, admittedly low-fire.
Pantea Karimi
Vegetable Garden. 2011, 7x7 feet, plastic materials and chopsticks. I created Vegetable Garden piece to comment on our manipulated environments caused by man-made additions, and altered natural landscapes due to excessive waste and over consuming unnatural materials.
Priscilla Otani
Wind Traveler. Sacs created from calligraphy paper, filled with seeds, pods, snail shells, dried weeds, pebbles. Each strung with stick and waxed linen thread. The pods make a dry, husky sound when the wind blows through them. Their shapes are reminiscent of breast icons strung by women in Tono. The frail membranes will release their contents on the ground and into the air as the Elements dictate. Inscribed on each is Basho's haiku, the last he wrote before his death:
Tabi ni yande Falling sick on a journey
Yume wa kareno o My dreams circle round and around
Kakemeguru In withered fields
Judy Shintani & Kim Criswell
Flower Power. We worked in collaboration with the land inside a pit-like indentation at the top of a hill that people were calling “the volcano”. Taking our cue from existing vegetation at the bottom of the “volcano”, we created a land flower reminiscent of Flower Power stickers that were popular during the 1960s peace movement. At the center of the pit, dark patches of spent poppy plants grew in a pattern that suggested large petals. We emphasized that image by removing clumps of straw-like wild oat and outlining dark petals with white shale rock. We used violet-colored powdered tempera and sweet yellow dandelions to emphasize the center. We intuitively incorporated the healing qualities of these different elements: later research confirmed dandelions’, poppies’, shale's, and the color purple's medicinal usage for stress, liver, transformation, and balancing. We finished the piece with a small performance, inviting those who wished to join to us at the rim of the “volcano” to cast handfuls of flour into the wind, symbolically releasing whatever we wanted to let go of.
Irma Velasquez
Horse. I used the canvass that spoke to me on the side of a hill. I worked from the image that emerged as I moved the vines that were intertwined between the drying stalks of poison hemlock. I used the hay that was on the hill to build on the image of a horse looking toward the open field. The wind gave the sculpture movement and the light from the setting sun gave it definition from afar.
