Last weekend, I was at the Rising Tide Conference: Art and Ecological Aesthetics, hosted by the California College of the Arts and Stanford University and was on a panel talking about the importance of art in any vision of human sustainability. I emphasized the notion that if we’re going to make art that is supposedly also “for the Earth” that we better think about what the Earth might actually need, otherwise it’s just green paint or wishful thinking. It might be helpful to consider art for human and non-human needs from beginning to end (materials, making and where it goes after we’re done with it, and after that). What would the worms and watersheds actually notice and appreciate? They had a very diverse group of speakers and some fun architectural design ideas floating around. Met some great artists in person (finally) who I’ve been wanting to connect with: Linda Gass and Ian Garrett of The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts, to name just a few. It’s good to interconnect and jabber at these things but we need more biologists, land managers, business people and public policy experts at these conferences. All of you in those fields, please consider inviting eco-artists and their ilk to your next conference and vice versa. We need to be building ever-larger arks people. NOAA indeed…

Go to the Green Museum