By Mary Woodbury

It’s been cool to meet Joel Burcat, an author and recently retired environmental lawyer, who has written a series of environmental legal thrillers. The first, Drink to Every Beast, was featured by Kirkus Reviews, Good Day PA, the Green Life Blue Water blog, and in theNew York Times article “Writing With Your Eyes Closed” about blind authors and their works. 

The second book, Amid Rage (Headline Books, February, 2021), can be read as a stand-alone novel and continues following up-and-coming Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection lawyer Mike Jacobs in a legal battle. This time, Mike finds himself caught in the middle of a potentially lethal legal situation when a local community is harassed by Ernie Rinati, the owner of Rhino Mining Co., who will stop at nothing to see that his new mine becomes operational.

Tell us about yourself – your life so far and how you got started in writing. What else have you published besides Amid Rage?

I have practiced environmental law for 40 years. I became a lawyer to practice environmental law and was fortunate to make a career of it. Now, I am a full-time writer. My second love (or maybe it was my secret love) is and has been writing. I began writing when I was young, but set it aside when I became a lawyer as I was too busy with work and a family to focus on it. While I now write mostly novels, I continue to write short stories (I just had two short stories published in anthologies).

My first novel was Drink to Every Beast, published by Headline Books in 2019. It is an environmental legal thriller about midnight dumping. It follows my very young (26-year old) PaDEP prosecutor, Mike Jacobs, on his first big case trying to stop illegal dumping into the Susquehanna River.

I have been fortunate to have eight of my short stories published in journals, magazines, and anthologies. They range from murder, to a wedding, to growing grapes, to the best beer I ever had. I’ve been published in the Montreal Review, Hobo Pancakes, Harrisburg Magazine, and others.

I’ve edited two major books: the first was Pennsylvania Environmental Law and Practice (1994, 1st through 7th eds., Pa. Bar Institute Press) and The Law of Oil and Gas in Pa. (2014, 1st and 2d eds., Pa. Bar Institute Press). These are the two major treatises on these subjects in Pennsylvania.

Tell us something about your newest novel. Who is the intended audience, and what’s going on in the story?

My new novel is Amid Rage, an environmental legal thriller, featuring Mike Jacobs. In it, a psychotic coal mine operator and cynical neighbors with an anti-mining agenda fight out a strip mine permit battle. Mike, a 29-year old environmental prosecutor with Pennsylvania’s environmental agency, DEP, is caught between the warring factions, but is ordered to “babysit” the case. All Mike wants to do is to protect the environment and neighbors from certain harm as a result of the proposed mining. Sid Feldman, the Philadelphia lawyer for the mine operator, who oozes power and privilege, offers Mike a job midway through the proceedings. Miranda Clymer, the lawyer for the neighbors, pulls out all the stops to win Mike’s affection and assistance. Mike’s nearest and dearest friend, Nicky Kane, is by his side as his paralegal. Mike must use all of his talents as a lawyer in the courtroom and rely on his discretion and courage to do what is right and not anger the political bosses for whom he works. In the cataclysmic ending, someone will die, but who?

The intended audience is people who enjoy a good legal thriller, suspense, or mystery novel. Also, it will be very interesting to those who follow environmental issues. My books are very descriptive of the issues (and hopefully educational) and I hope that readers will be both enthralled by the book and will learn something.

What sorts of ecological themes does your novel have, and how were you inspired to write about them?

Ecological themes include:

• Coal strip mining: How it is done, what it is like, what blasting is like, and what kind of impact it has on the environment.
• Litigating an environmental case: What is this litigation really like? What kinds of strategies do the sides employ? What can go right/wrong in these cases? What do the lawyers feel during the case?
• The pros and cons of coal mining: While my main character, Mike, is against coal mining and is concerned about climate change, other characters take the opposite position. I hope to educate readers on the nuances of their positions.
• Climate change is discussed throughout the book.

I have been interested in the environment for as long as I can remember. As a lawyer, I have lived some of these cases, read about many of them, and imagined the rest. My books present a realistic scenario of this world.

After publication, do you plan to do any book fairs or talks? How would you describe the reaction to your book so far? Is it hard to market during the COVID pandemic?

Amid Rage isn’t out yet [at the time of this writing], so I have not yet done any book fairs or programs, although I expect to do them. When my first book, Drink to Every Beast, came out, I had several “book launches” at book stores locally and in New York City, and made a number of appearances at bookstores and book gatherings (the biggest was the American Library Association’s annual gathering in Washington, DC).

I’m still awaiting the public reaction. However, I have had some early reaction from the writers Steve Berry and Doug Lyle, both of whom really liked the book and said very nice things about it.

It is harder – and easier – to market in a pandemic. I cannot do live programs and that is a problem as many readers really want to meet the author and buy a book that is signed by the author with an inscription to them. At the same time, I have already done a number of Zoom events for Beast and had many people from all over the US tune in. I would not have had people from hundreds or thousands of miles away attending an event if we did not have a Zoom event. So that is a plus.

Are you working on anything else right now, and do you want to add other thoughts about your book?

I am finishing up Strange Fire. That is the third book in the Mike Jacobs series and is about fracking. Again, while Mike Jacobs is against fracking, I am trying to present both sides of the issue. I present the “pro” side through characters who are pro-drilling. Also, I have included some interesting elements in the novel that are more than just whispered rumors about the industry and opposition to it. There is both courtroom drama and strong thriller elements in the story. I have some great antagonists and some people wearing various shades of gray. I really want this story to stay with readers and make them think.

I believe readers will love Amid Rage. It presents Mike at his most capable and also most vulnerable. He wants to do the right thing but is restrained both by his political masters, limitations, and reality. There is a love story in the book, and I am very happy with how that turned out, so it has something for all readers.

Thanks so much, Joel! It’s interesting to see the environmental law aspect in fiction.

This article is part of our Wild Authors series. It was originally published on Dragonfly.eco.

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Mary Woodbury, a graduate of Purdue University, runs Dragonfly.eco, a site that explores ecology in literature, including works about climate change. She writes fiction under pen name Clara Hume. Her novel Back to the Garden has been discussed in Dissent Magazine, Ethnobiology for the Future: Linking Cultural and Ecological Diversity (University of Arizona Press), and Uncertainty and the Philosophy of Climate Change (Routledge). Mary lives in Nova Scotia and enjoys hiking, writing, and reading.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog

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By Jennifer McGregor

Landscape Deconstructed: Mimi Czajka Graminski and Linda Stillman is a virtual exhibition on view at the Hammond Museum and Japanese Stroll Garden website until June 2022. It is curated by Bibiana Huang Matheis. The opening on September 11, 2021, included a virtual conversation with Mimi Czajka Graminski and Linda Stillman, moderated by Jennifer McGregor, which has been distilled and reformatted for individual interviews with each artist.

The Hudson Valley artists met in 2011 and were immediately struck by the similarities in their work – and have continued a dialogue since then. Landscape Deconstructed is the first time their artwork is presented in tandem and underscores the way that both artists discover elements of their surroundings and reassemble them in ingenious ways. Through distinct processes, they each preserve fleeting moments of beauty in nature while documenting a particular time and place.

What inspires your use of petals and leaves in the pieces in Landscape Deconstructed?

Using these found natural objects goes along with my ideas about upcycling and using materials on hand. The roses came from a friend’s garden, and I was struck by their vibrancy. I was attracted to the shapes of the individual petals and the way the colors subtly shift within each petal. I wanted to highlight them by extending their life into artwork.

I discovered leaves on my many walks. The golden green lozenge-shaped locust leaves were like bright gems at my feet, and the sassafras leaves had many colors and shapes which intrigued me. Discovering them felt like coming across an abundance of treasures.

How has your relationship with/in the environment deepened over the past two years, particularly since March 2020?

Last year, during the COVID lockdown, I had to move out of my studio due to a roof leak. Although I was able to use a small, dedicated space in my home to work, I was drawn to the outdoors and found myself working outside, mining the natural world for inspiration and materials. During this time, my senses were heightened, and I discovered so much in my environment that had gone unnoticed before. I observed plants closely, and the shifting light and shadows on them. It was finding an entirely new world and I happily translated this deeper connection into new work.

You create work that plays with the ephemerality of light and shadow and then use photography and video to capture it. How has this process developed? 

While exploring this new treasure trove found in the natural world, I realized the materials would not translate into permanent pieces. So, I came up with the idea of using photography and video as a way of preserving these ephemeral artworks. Since both media were somewhat new to me, I didn’t know the rules associated with either medium. This gave me the freedom to explore both. I take dozens of photos and videos of each work, experimenting and using trial and error to refine the process. At the same time, nature is collaborating with me, adding wind, shadows, shifting light. Then I go back to the shots to adjust and edit the results.

How does chance and instinct inform your work? For instance, where does the drawing come from with the sassafras leaves?  What’s the balance between spontaneity and editing in the petal pieces?

Both chance and instinct are big contributors to this body of work. As I mentioned, coming across the materials (leaves) happened by chance. The contribution of sunlight, wind, and shadow are all out of my control and I use instinct to work with them to create a final piece.

I happened upon the sassafras leaves and noticed that even though they came from the same tree, they were all different shapes and colors. They ended up on my worktable sitting next to pens. It was a natural progression to try drawing on the leaves which made wonderful small canvases for intuitive drawing. I let my hand direct the process and the drawing became very meditative.

With all of this work, I am taking dozens of photos and videos; some are planned, and others are left to the vagaries of the environment. For instance, the sun may go behind a cloud, or the wind might pick up, all contributing to the artwork. Creating the work is made with process in mind, and the editing is done with an eye towards the final product.

You have lived in the Hudson Valley for quite some time. How does place inform your work?

Living in the Hudson Valley region of New York State has influenced me in many ways. I feel connected to the landscape here – the mountains and the river are a constant and are the western boundary to my everyday life. The flora, both native and invasive species, have found their way into my work. The changing seasons give me an opportunity to work in different conditions, as the light, weather, and temperatures fluctuate. Living near the woods, I observe the fauna and their habits, deer, woodchucks, moles, skunks, etc. All of these factors seep into my consciousness and inform my work.

(Top image: Petal Series Rose 1, 10 x 10 inches, archival pigment print of photograph of rose petals, 2020-2021. All photo courtesy of the artist.)

This interview is part of a content collaboration between Art Spiel and Artists & Climate Change. It was originally published on Art Spiel on February 21, 2022 as part of an ongoing interview series with contemporary artists.

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Jennifer McGregor is a curator and arts planner who brings expertise in ecological art, curating/programing, and public art planning to artist-centered work. For over two decades she conceived place-based exhibitions at Wave Hill. There she activated connections to the environment by producing adventurous projects that explored nature, culture, and site. Through McGregor Consulting she works with clients and collaborators to develop strategies that engage non-traditional public spaces, diverse audiences and dynamic artists.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog

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By Joan Sullivan

For artists interested in the energy transition, I would argue that the three most important words in Bill McKibben’s latest essay in The New Yorker are: “culture shifts slowly.” 

Culture shifts slowly. This maxim applies to all social change, not just energy transitions. But unlike previous energy transitions, the 21st century’s shift away from a culture of consumption towards a culture of stewardship does not have the luxury of time. As McKibben explains, “time is the crucial variable” for the climate: 

As hard as it will be to rewire the planet’s energy system by decade’s end, I think it would be harder – impossible, in fact – to sufficiently rewire social expectations, consumer preferences, and settlement patterns in that short stretch.

Artists, this is where you come in: Enter, stage left and stage right! We need a tsunami of global artists – poets, architects, designers, musicians, playwrights, filmmakers, curators – collectively engaged in “rewiring social expectations” about the current energy transition. A transition that will inevitably shift our gaze from looking down into the bowels of the earth to looking up at our star. A transition that will liberate us from an unconscious, unsustainable, and unethical addiction to fossilized sunlight controlled by the few. Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is just the most recent example.

As I mentioned in a series of posts last year, Barry Lord’s book, Art & Energy: How Culture Changes, is an excellent place for artists to start. It succinctly weaves together the history of the reciprocal relationship between art, artists, and energy transitions over the millennia. This book provides valuable insights for contemporary artists about the historical precedent where previous generations of artists contributed, in various ways, to earlier energy transitions by influencing the perception of and the cultural values associated with the incipient (“alternative”) energy source. 

Shakespeare, who witnessed the transition from the age of wood to the age of coal between the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries, mentioned coal disparagingly in the opening line of Romeo and Juliet: “Gregory, o’ my word, we’ll not carry coals.” According to Shakespearean scholar Marianne Kimura, Romeo and Juliet was written as an allegory against coal. For example, she suggests that in Act 2, Scene 2, when Romeo compares Juliet to “the sun”, this is Shakespeare’s not-so-subtle reference to coal’s thick black smoke belching from unfiltered chimneys that literally blotted out the sunlight in crowded Elizabethan London. 

Four centuries later, our “modern” transition away from fuels (coal, oil and gas) back to non-fuels (sun, wind, water) offers artists a unique gift: the chance to express themselves through a medium that is invisible as well as infinite, i.e., non-fuels produce energy that is mostly electrons.

In the 21st century, the main incipient source of these invisible electrons is the Sun. McKibben describes the Sun as:

… a great ball of burning gas about ninety-three million miles away, whose energy can be collected in photovoltaic panels, and which differentially heats the Earth, driving winds whose energy can now be harnessed with great efficiency by turbines. The electricity they produce can warm and cool our homes, cook our food, and power our cars and bikes and buses. The sun burns, so we don’t need to.

The sun burns so we don’t need to. Kudos, Mr. McKibben! To which I will add my favorite solar quote from the French philosopher Georges Bataille in his essay The Accursed Share (La part maudite): “The sun gives without ever receiving.” 

I hope these two quotes may inspire artists around the world to re-imagine our relationship with the Sun – the central character in an unfolding drama that has yet to be written. A homecoming story, perhaps, since this energy transition involves shifting our gaze and our allegiance back to the ultimate source of light and warmth for all life on Earth: a radiant star that gives without demanding anything in return. Only artists can help us to “see” the light. 

Between now and the end of this decade, if enough artists commit to writing / illustrating / singing a million different versions of this modern transition story – a return to our roots, a return to non-fuels – then maybe we can prove Mr. McKibben wrong about how slowly culture shifts. Together, we can redream society as the poet Ben Okri implored artists to do in his urgent call to arms on the last day of COP26. Together, we can unleash an avalanche of cultural and social change so rapid and profound that wars for oil will become a thing of the past. Imagine what a beautiful world that will be. 

Imagine.

(Top image by Joan Sullivan)

This article is part of the Renewable Energy series.

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Joan Sullivan is a Canadian photographer and writer focused on the energy transition. She is a new member of Women Photograph. In her monthly column for Artists and Climate Change, Joan explores the intersection of art and the energy transition. She is currently experimenting with abstract photography as a new language to express her eco-anxiety about climate breakdown and our collective silence. You can find Joan on Twitter and Visura.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog

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By Susan Hoffman Fishman

For the last 50+ years, eco-artist and environmental activist Betsy Damon has devoted herself to community building – the coming together of individuals to achieve a common purpose. Since the 1980s, after a decade of engaging the public through public performances in New York City, she has worked at the intersection of art and science, focusing on the topic of water and on creating models for communities in the United States and China to know and become stewards of their own water sources. The brief descriptions below, highlighting four of Damon’s many exhibitions, ecological and sustainable design projects, publications, and organizations are only a brief glimpse into her prolific and important body of work.

Damon’s first major project on water came about after a cross-country camping trip with her children in 1983, during which she observed a number of dry riverbeds whose once flowing waters had been dammed and redirected. As a result of this experience and a growing reconnection to the natural world, she conceived of a project that would bring attention to the environmental loss that the dry riverbeds represented and serve as a living memory of the missing water. Damon was able to realize the project, called A Memory of Clean Water, when she brought together a group of master papermakers and local artists to create a paper casting covering 250 feet of a dry riverbed in Castle Rock, Utah. The stunning and powerful piece was installed in seven venues across the country from 1986 through 1991, including at the Danforth Museum in Framingham, Massachusetts; the University of Wisconsin at Madison; Everhart Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania; MoMA PS1 in New York City; and others.  

A Memory of Clean Water was pivotal to the evolution of Damon’s practice. During its creation, as she was working on her hands and knees placing paper pulp over rocks, she looked up and realized that the patterns of stars in the sky mirrored the patterns in the riverbed. Profoundly moved by this personal epiphany, she promised herself to learn as much as she could about water and has spent the rest of her life since then fulfilling that promise. 

In 1990, Damon moved from New York to Minnesota to teach art and activism classes at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. One year later, she founded and directed Keepers of the Waters, a non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging and supporting community-based water projects. Under the auspices of the Hubert Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minneapolis, Damon and her colleagues held community meetings in Duluth, Minnesota, focusing on local water concerns, including wastewater treatment, toxic sites, and the condition of lakes and rivers. They developed performances, exhibitions, community workshops, clean-up efforts, lectures, and classes in order to inform community members about their waters and to promote activism. 

As a result of her work with Keepers of the Waters, Damon was invited in 1993 to San Antonio, Texas to teach a class called Art and Activism at Trinity University. One of her students there created a project to clean up a neglected park beside the San Antonio River. Her initial effort to improve the area has morphed into an annual cleanup event. 

While she was in San Antonio, Damon also attended meetings of a citizen’s group that had been organized to address issues impacting the Edwards Aquifer, the source of water for most of southcentral Texas. Her participation in the group inspired them to create an organization called Save the Edwards Aquifer to monitor real estate development encroaching on the water system. Looking back on this effort and on all of her projects since she began her work as an eco-artist and activist, Damon acknowledges that her “primary role throughout her practice has been to ignite activism, to get people to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do.”

During a trip to China in 1995 to conduct a Keepers of the Waters project in Chengdu, Damon was invited by the Chengdu City Government to see their plans for establishing a series of parks on both sides of the polluted Jin Jiang River. After reviewing the plans, she suggested that they create a park that would teach their citizens how nature cleans water naturally. In 1996, impressed by the spirit of the events that Damon produced with her colleagues, the government officials invited her to design the park she had conceived. 

The Living Water Garden, completed in 1998, was visited by governors and mayors from every province in China, and serves as a teaching model to this day. Zhu Rong Ji, the Premier of China, praised the project as “the best thing to happen in China that year.” Yu Guang Yuan, economic advisor to Deng Xiaoping, told Damon that unlike most people who had come to China to make money, “you came and gave us a future.” Of the many design projects she has developed throughout her career, she regards the Living Water Garden as the most effective in influencing a community’s relationship to water. 

Over the years, Damon thought about writing a book that would document her work with water and community. In 2017, at a board meeting of Keepers of the Water, the idea resurfaced and became a reality. As she usually does when she has a project to develop, she gathered a group of colleagues and friends together to create the framework for the book. Part memoir, part scientific and spiritual exploration of water, and part manual on how to organize and energize communities to understand and protect their own water sources, Water Talks will be released by Steiner Books on April 5, 2022. 

Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, British primatologist, anthropologist, and the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees, wrote the preface for Water Talks. In it, she describes the book as “based on science but filled with the spirit of the artist… containing inspiring moments and successes of people and communities that have organized around saving a water place.” In her introduction, Damon explains her fundamental belief that water should be a communal resource, immune to privatization: 

Every place, community and country needs to be in charge of its water. This means making bodies of water the common property of all who live near it, which will require policies and practices generated from an understanding of our dependence on one another and nature… the movement to grant personhood for nature is one of the most effective movements, reflecting the reality of our complete dependence on water, air and soil.

Damon has many plans for future projects, including expanding the reach of Keepers of the Waters by encouraging individuals and organizations everywhere to develop living water gardens. As has been the case in all of her endeavors, she will most likely achieve her goal.

(Top image: A Living Water Garden, Chengdu, China)

This article is part of Imagining Water, a series on artists of all genres who are making the topic of water and climate disruption a focus of their work and on the growing number of exhibitions, performances, projects and publications that are appearing in museums, galleries and public spaces around the world with water as a theme.

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Susan Hoffman Fishman is a Connecticut-based painter, eco-artist and arts writer whose work has been exhibited widely in museums and galleries throughout the U.S. Since 2011, all of her paintings, installations and photographs have addressed water and the climate crisis. Her most recent work, called In the Beginning There Was Only Water is a visual reframing of the biblical creation myth. In 39 panels, it speaks to the importance and beauty of all living beings and what we stand to lose as a result of climate change. She recently participated in an artist’s residency at Planet, an international company providing global satellite images, where she focused on the proliferation of sinkholes caused by climate change. 

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog

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By Jennifer McGregor

Landscape Deconstructed: Mimi Czajka Graminski and Linda Stillman is a virtual exhibition on view at the Hammond Museum and Japanese Stroll Garden website until June 2022. It is curated by Bibiana Huang Matheis. The opening on September 11, 2021, included a virtual conversation with Mimi Czajka Graminski and Linda Stillman, moderated by Jennifer McGregor, which has been distilled and reformatted for individual interviews with each artist.

The Hudson Valley artists met in 2011 and were immediately struck by the similarities in their work – and they have continued a dialogue since then. Landscape Deconstructed is the first time their artwork is presented in tandem and it underscores the way that both artists discover elements of their surroundings and reassemble them in ingenious ways. Through distinct processes, they each preserve fleeting moments of beauty in nature while documenting a particular time and place.

In your Daily Skies series, you’ve been documenting the sky every day since 2005. Since time is such an important element in all of your work, how has this project evolved?

I started out making paintings of a section of the sky on a little panel. To keep the project fresh, I changed the format each year, mounting the panels in different ways. The paintings in Landscape Deconstructed are from 2011. They are mounted by month in the form of a calendar on shaped panels that float away from the wall to create shadows, that give physicality to each month.

After many years of painting on panels, I turned to various media – drawing, painting on paper, collaging, and then photography. This year, I’ve been taking a square photo of the sky with my phone, facing North at noon each day. I then post it on a dedicated Instagram account along with a photo of the ground.

While the format has changed over the years, the desire to have a daily practice and record a fleeting moment remains the same. Taking time to look up at the sky each day is my way to honor and celebrate nature.

Collaborating with nature is part of all of your work but in the ‘August’ Gardenproject, you created a calendar with garden beds and photographed them over time. What did you learn from this collaboration?

To combine my love of gardening with my desire to make art, I embarked on a project to plant a calendar of flowers and herbs in my garden and to document it over time. The project concerns the passage of time in nature: how flowers grow and die, and how we try to preserve the memory of fleeting moments of beauty.

The artificial format of the monthly calendar provided a design format, and I used the month of August since that is when gardens are at their peak. I planted annuals in the sequence of the color spectrum, a different color for each day of the week. Sundays were planted with all white flowers, then Mondays with yellow, Tuesdays with orange, Wednesdays with red, Thursdays with violet, Fridays were blue, and Saturdays, the biggest cooking day of the week for me, were planted with herbs. Many of the flowers I purchased didn’t conform to the color on their tag or didn’t hold up to the full sun and had to be replanted with a different variety. The unruly plants soon outgrew their plots and obliterated the carefully placed grid of paving stones.

I photographed the garden from high above in a cherry picker in July, September, November, and the following May to show the passage of time. Seeing the progress from seedling to full growth to death reified my interest in time in nature.

From this project, I learned that it’s impossible to control nature and that you have to be open to failure. Gardening is similar to making art: you have an initial vision, but it often has to be adjusted along the way.

Since March 2020, you’ve been spending much time in your upstate New York studio. How does place inform your work and have there been any surprises since spending so much more time in nature?

Living here in the country full-time since the onset of COVID has been transformative. While I always loved and appreciated nature, my relationship with the outdoors has deepened greatly. I feel part of my surroundings and want to learn more about the flora around me.

On my daily walks down our street, I have been learning the names of the plants. Many of them are invasive and threaten our environment by robbing native plants of light, water, and nutrients, which leads to a loss of biodiversity. Identifying, naming, and distinguishing invasives from similar benign species has led to a new body of work.

Now when visiting New York City, I am amazed by how disconnected I feel from nature and the weather. Looking up at the sky is a conscious effort and finding a patch of earth is a struggle.

There is a distinct form or arrangement in your work. The geometric patterns in your ‘August’ Garden project and in the leaf collages make me think of the simplicity of Shaker patterns. What are the influences in your work?

Multiple influences combine in my work. I love Shaker art and have always been interested in folk art in general, but most especially quilts. I’m attracted to the geometric patterns and use of discarded materials.

My first career as a graphic designer working with grids had a profound influence on my art. I have a need to create order and am attracted to the work of artists who use the grid, like Agnes Martin. I am fascinated by the graphic woodcut illustrations in antique herbals, and by botanical herbaria and the way they order and preserve nature.

My favorite painting is Moss Roses in a Vase by Edouard Manet. I always have a postcard reproduction of it with me in my studio. It has been a talisman and a conceptual inspiration for my work.

What goes on in your studio? What aspects of your process come from your relationship to nature, such as the flower stain samplers and the leaf collages?

I discovered the technique of flower staining when I was documenting the ‘August’ Garden project and have been using it ever since. The stain drawings are made from flower petals, rubbed onto paper, creating traces of ephemeral color while containing small remnants of the flowers. Over the years, I’ve learned which flowers create the most vibrant, long-lasting stains and I plant those varieties in my garden. Verbenas are my favorites. The Hillsdale Sampler records what was flowering in my gardens in 2019. I incorporate the names of the flowers in this and other pieces. Naming is important to me as a way to know and remember something.

For years I have gathered and preserved leaves in the fall to use later. I put them in a professional plant press or old phone books to dry. When I’m in rush, I microwave them. When dried, I glue fragments of leaves on paper or panels, contrasting the biomorphic forms of nature with geometric forms in an attempt to create order.

I consider the flower stains and the leaf collages a collaboration with nature. They embed the idea of the fleeting nature of time.

(Top image: ‘August’ Garden – in July, archival pigment print of photograph of land art installation, 8 x 12 inches on 11 x 14-inch paper, 2001/2008. All images courtesy of the artist.)

This interview is part of a content collaboration between Art Spiel and Artists & Climate Change. It was originally published on Art Spiel on February 14, 2022 as part of an ongoing interview series with contemporary artists.

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Jennifer McGregor is a curator and arts planner who brings expertise in ecological art, curating/programing, and public art planning to artist-centered work. For over two decades, she conceived place-based exhibitions at Wave Hill. There, she activated connections to the environment by producing adventurous projects that explored nature, culture, and site. Through McGregor Consulting, she works with clients and collaborators to develop strategies that engage non-traditional public spaces, diverse audiences, and dynamic artists.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog

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