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2/4/2009 12:54:00 PM
The arts go green
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Written by Susan Watts
Des Moines artist Pam Dennis uses willow and "found" objects in her works. Brent Houzenga creates mixed-media pieces with discarded windows, wood and photographs. Chaden Halfhill builds installations that explore the tension between manmade and natural environments.
These and other local artists not only are part of a growing trend that focuses on conservation through the arts, but they're also showing others how to be green by being creative. Through GreenArts, an initiative launched last year by Metro Arts Alliance and a group of public and private organizations, artists are going into schools and community centers to conduct hands-on workshops that tie an ecology-based ethic to creating art. Last summer, for example, Houzenga went to area parks and helped children make paper birds, which they attached to branches found in the park.
This spring, programs planned for schools include making prints using natural plant color found during a prairie field trip, making puppets using only recycled materials, and creating a large collaborative piece out of old magazines after students learn about recycling at Metro Waste Authority. Though GreenArts' focus is on presenting programs in schools, community centers such as the Des Moines Central Library, Salisbury House and the State Historical Museum of Iowa also will host workshops and demonstrations.
One of the major benefits of GreenArts, educators and organizers say, is that it teaches science through the arts in a way that engages kids. Science and art "are both a process, taking something you find curious and intriguing and using creative thought to process, develop and build toward a conclusion or work of art," says Katie Flippen, programming and partnership coordinator for GreenArts. "Our ability to create comes from being insightful and resourceful. Science and art are both about discovery."
The GreenArts program also may reach students who don't seem to be interested in science, says Pat Boddy, former director of the Polk County Conservation Board, a GreenArts partner. Other partners include, in addition to Metro Arts, Metro Waste Authority, the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, the Des Moines Parks and Recreation Department, Open Arts, The Great Outdoors Fund and RDG Planning & Design. A $20,000 grant from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources' Resource Enhancement and Protection Program helped launch the program.
"Research shows that there are very different ways of learning," says Boddy. To ignore visual learners is to "miss connecting with a large percentage of students."
Jen Gebhart, who teaches fifth grade at Crocker Elementary School in Ankeny, says through GreenArts-sponsored projects, "students are learning about the ozone layer and what we can do to help our earth. We are all benefiting and having fun while learning."
In designing and developing the GreenArts program, conservationists and artists had to "step out of their comfort zones," says Flippen.
Workshops held last year for both groups "got conservationists thinking with great originality and got artists thinking about how to ratchet up their ideas," adds Boddy.
Halfhill conducted one of the workshops that focused on "what an artist does with waste. What do you do with your discarded materials? How do you manage your studio? Or do you deal with it conceptually?" he says. Halfhill uses a scientific term to describe this exchange of ideas: cross-pollination. He's been using themes in line with GreenArts in his conceptual art work for years. Sustainability also is one of the major tenets of Silent Rivers Design + Build, Halfhill's custom remodeling company.
"One thing that's great about GreenArts is that what you've been talking about and working on now has some relevance," says Halfhill.
Dennis agrees. She and her husband, Ryk Weiss, have been creating artwork with natural materials for over 25 years. They started out making baskets and furniture out of willow, which grows on their land. That morphed into mixed-media sculpture that incorporates raku (a type of earthenware) and pit-fired clay with copper, wood and found objects. The couple recently has focused on large-scale installations created with contributions from the public, such as a 20-foot-long willow Moby Dick on display at Iowa State University's Reiman Gardens.
"I've been doing this for 25 years. With the (GreenArts) program, people pay more attention to it," says Dennis. "If that's what works to get people to change their habits and help the earth, then that's fine with me!"
Because of its collaboration among artists, conservationists, public agencies, nonprofit organizations and educators, GreenArts "looks at things in an integrated and holistic way," adds Halfhill. "That what it's all about."
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