The Art of Environmental Restoration by Robin Meadows, March 2018 Issue, ESTUARY News magazine
http://www.sfestuary.org/estuary-news-art-of-restoration/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ESTUARYNews/status/988927213981450240
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ESTUARYNews/posts/1706921492721082

I am happy to have my environmental or eco-artwork included in this article by Robin Meadows in the latest issue of ESTUARY NEWS. Keep watching this Blog for announcements about my eco-art quilt project with handmade paper and seeds for wildflowers in the pulp that is planned for a Santa Rosa, CA, park in early 2019.

See below for the latest about the current show in NYC that includes documentary photos and a “living quilt” sample from my recent outdoor installation in a city park in Newnan, Georgia, created during a residency at Newnan Art Rez.

John Jay College of Criminal Justice
City University of New York
899 Tenth Avenue, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10019

proudly presents the exhibition

GREEN HABITAT

Curated by Dr. Thalia Vrachopoulos

On display from April 25th through June 28th, 2018

Opening Reception:
Wednesday, April 25th, 2018, from 5:30-8:00 PM

As more and bigger natural catastrophes visit our planet, sustainable or ecology-based arts are gaining ever greater importance. Ecological art respects the ecosystems of living species and their environments from an ethical, social, contextual, economic and aesthetic perspective while seeking to remedy or preserve life. It is socially engaged and socially interactive, and at times even intervention-based art. The goals of such art are socially oriented, altruistic and hopeful in that they seek to spark awareness in the public arena about the urban environment’s issues and the alteration needed for a better future. They often include audience participation and growing plants we see in Jane Ingram-Allen’s Living Quilt for Newnan a mixed media installation. This “flower bed” with a “living quilt” as Ingram-Allen calls it, was done with community participation during her residency as a Newnan Artist in Residence in Newman, Georgia in the fall of 2017. Other artists engaged with eco-art are intent on bringing to the fore issues that involve the destruction of our environment. Barbara Roux does this in her site-specific installation At War with Plants Too. The title refers to the susceptibility of nature to human violence; additionally, it is the basis for Roux’s use of the native sycamore whose brown, yellow and green bark appears to be cloaked by camouflage patterns. Milena Popov utilizes natural materials such as tea to make her calligraphic horizontal paper works. One work entitled Landscape Painted with Tea: Conversation with Nature, 2016 . In her eco-painting, Popov carries on a conversation with nature while preserving it for posterity in her artworks. Joan Giordano in her Deforestation Birch Forest sculpture also addresses the field of sustainable art. Her wall sculpture with its wing-like span reaches out to us, much in the same way a mother would embrace her child, a very apt analogy of nature as nurturer. The work is created out of the cast off reddish-brown bark of young birch trees. Bill Pangburn in his Hudson Beisete series also deals with the destruction of ecosystems. His hope is to bring the issue to the forefront of public awareness, so positive changes can be made. By depicting the flow of water as he sees it daily on his bike ride home along the Hudson River, he is simultaneously meditating and commenting on the ephemerality of nature. Antigoni Kavvatha’s forests speak of her love for nature but also for drawing in a style advocated and associated with the academy for its use of chiaroscuro and its naturalistic qualities. But, the academic similarity stops at this point. Indeed, Kavvatha’s monumental horizontal friezes have more in common with site specific installation art and with Asian calligraphy than with an academic approach to drawing. Mary Hrbacek anthropomorphizes her trees to humanize nature in the hope of gaining sympathy for them. Hrbacek has dedicated a large portion of her career painting trees in cool colors that subtly allude to the icy landscapes of her beloved Scandinavian background. Ona B. is primarily an installation and performance artist who through her interventions and depictions of animals seeks to bring attention to their endangered status. Her commitment to diversity and conservancy is reflected in her small red paintings that depict animals such as the Asian rhinoceros which are threatened by extinction mainly through loss of their habitats or lack of genetic variation. In his panels, Giorgos Tzinoudis depicts the consumption of fish by larger fish as a metaphor for the greater human social crisis. His scenes in which smaller fish are eaten by bigger ones, establish a visual metaphor for overpopulation and extinction.

The world’s natural balance depends upon multivalent flora and fauna relationships that are not only ethically compelling but also absolutely necessary to human survival. Biodiversity and the prevention of animal extinction are two environmental factors to be sought for the sake of simple survival as humans are interrelated to these ecosystems. The exhibit and its artists use a visual language to call for respect towards our planet’s natural resources and for the well-being of the planet’s rich biodiversity.

For more information please contact:
The Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery
John Jay College
860 11th Avenue
New York, NY 10019
gallery@jjay.cuny.edu
212-237-1439

shivagallery.org

Gallery Hours: 12- 6 PM, M – F
About John Jay College of Criminal Justice: An international leader in educating for justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice of The City University of New York offers a rich liberal arts and professional studies curriculum to upwards of 15,000 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 135 nations. In teaching, scholarship and research, the College approaches justice as an applied art and science in service to society and as an ongoing conversation about fundamental human desires for fairness, equality and the rule of law. For more information, visit http://www.jjay.cuny.edu

This year Jane Ingram Allen from America, curator since 2010 for this art project, is back in Taiwan again for the 9th anniversary of the Cheng Long Wetlands International Environmental Art Project.  Jane began the environmental art project in 2010 with the support of Taiwan’s Kuan Shu Educational Foundation in the small village of Cheng Long in Yunlin County, Kouhu Township, on the southwest coast of Taiwan.  Jane has been in Cheng Long every year for the art project except 2017.  This year she is co-curating the art project with Chao-mei Wang, who has been the administrator every year for the art project as well as the Head Educator for the Kuan Shu Foundation.  Jane says it is great to be back in Cheng Long to see old friends and meet the new volunteers and see all the changes in the small fishing village, especially how much the children have grown.

This year we invited artists back who had been to the project before, and the theme for this anniversary year is “What A Difference 9 Years Makes” to focus on the changes in the village and the Cheng Long Wetlands over the 9 years that the art project has been happening each year. The 6 selected artists for this year are: Myriam du Manor from France who came to Taiwan to do this project in 2010 our first year, Marisa Merlin from Italy who came for this project first in 2015, Tsuneo Seckiguchi from Japan who first came for this project also in 2015, Firman Djamil from Indonesia who came first for this project in 2011, Chris Lee from Taiwan who came first for this project in 2016, and Ya-chu Kang from Taiwan who came first for this project in 2013. Jane and these 6 artists along with Jane’s husband Timothy S. Allen, our photographer, will be here in Cheng Long from April 12 to May 14 to create new artworks in the Wetlands.  Also, this year we will have a reunion and symposium from May 11-13 on the topic of “Environmental Art and Communities”. Many other environmental art curators, future curators, as well as other previous artists, community people, other environmental art managers and educators will join in the symposium and reunion celebration.  For more information and to register to attend the symposium on Mary 11-13, see the Facebook page for the Cheng Long Wetlands art project: https://www.facebook.com/chenglong.artproject

Below you can see some photos from our first few days of the 2018 Cheng Long Wetlands art project.  The photos were taken by Timothy S. Allen, and he will also be posting more photos on his own photo Blog at http://allentimphotos2.wordpress.com and on the Blog for the art project at http:artproject4wetland.wordpress.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check back here and also on the project’s Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/chenglong.artproject to see more information and photos as the artworks are created for the 2018 Cheng Long Wetlands International Environmental Art Project.

 

 

 

Exhibitions

“Good Natured”, St. Joseph’s College Gallery, St. Joseph’s College of the City College of NY, Brooklyn, NY, March 14 – April 25, 2018

I will be exhibiting 2 mixed-media handmade paper artworks in this 8-person group show curated by Meridith McNeal on the theme of nature art. Here is the website for the college to get all the details about this exhibition: https://www.sjcny.edu/brooklyn/student-life/council-for-the-arts
My pieces in the show include “Red Hook Site Map” created in 2003 when I was an artist-in-residence at Kentler International Drawing Space, Red Hook, Brooklyn. Also, my “Brooklyn Site Map” is included in this exhibition. Both works are mixed media map-based suspended installations using handmade paper I made from Brooklyn plants.

“Green Habitat”, Shiva Gallery, John Jay College, New York, NY, April 25 – June 30, 2018

I was invited to participate in this exhibition at Shiva Gallery, John Jay College, City University of New York, by curator Thalia Vrachopoulos. The exhibition “Green Habitat” includes works by 9 artists using diverse media who create ecology-based art focused on environmental concerns. I will exhibit photo documentation and a handmade paper sample from the eco-quilt installation “Living Quilt for Newnan” created at my August 2017 residency in Newnan, GA (www.newnanartist.org).
Here is the link to the NYC exhibition information:
http://shivagallery.org/portfolio/green-habitat/

“New Paper Road”, Hanji Theme Park, Wanju, South Korea, May 3-June 3, 2018.

2018 is the 20th anniversary of the Hanji Paper Festival in the traditional handmade paper village of Korea in Wanju. I was invited to exhibit one of my recent handmade paper artworks at this special anniversary exhibition in South Korea. I am sending a work that I created during my August 2016 residency at Boston Harbor Islands National Park titled “Peddock’s Island Birds”. This work depicts the different species of water birds that are found on the island and is made with handmade paper from invasive plants of Peddock’s Island.

A Walk in the Park, Yolo Arts Center, Gallery 625, 625 Court Street, Woodland, CA, June 2 – July 31, 2018

I will have my mixed media handmade paper artwork titled “Piping Plovers of Fire Island” included in a group exhibition at Yolo Arts Center, Woodland, CA (https://yoloarts.org ). This exhibition curated by Yolo Arts Center staff features works inspired by walks in a park. My piece was created during my artist in residency in September 2015 at Fire Island National Seashore, New York. I used materials collected there and handmade paper I made from local plant waste materials. The piping plover is an endangered bird in this area, and the park rangers are protecting the beach nesting sites for the piping plover. I encountered a flock of piping plovers that inspired this piece early one morning during a walk on the beach at Fire Island National Seashore.

Upcoming Public Art Project in Santa Rosa, CA

“Living Quilt for Santa Rosa”, Rincon Ridge Park, Santa Rosa, CA: to be installed and dedicated in early 2019.

“Living Quilt for Santa Rosa” is an ecological/environmental public art project by artist Jane Ingram Allen for Santa Rosa, California, to be installed in early 2019, in cooperation with the City of Santa Rosa Public Arts, at Rincon Ridge Park, off Fountaingrove Parkway, Santa Rosa. The project is in cooperation with the Public Arts Department of the City of Santa Rosa and dedicated to the healing and recovery after the October 2017 wildfires that were so devastating in Santa Rosa communities. There will be a series of public workshops and a public ceremony and dedication when the piece is installed. I am working with the city’s public arts coordinator, and we expect to do this project in February 2019.

Curatorial Project

2018 Cheng Long Wetlands International Environmental Art Project, Cheng Long village, Yunlin County, Taiwan, April 12 – May 14, 2018

2018 is the 9th consecutive year of the Cheng Long Wetlands International Environmental Art Project that I started in 2010 in Cheng Long village, Taiwan. Since nine is a lucky number in Chinese, we are having a special anniversary year and inviting artists who have participated before to submit proposals to return and make a new eco-art installation and participate in a symposium about environmental art and communities. In 2018 I will go to Taiwan from April 12 to May 14 to curate this exhibition and supervise the 6 international artists who will create site-specific sculpture installations in the wetlands and village using natural and recycled materials and focused on environmental issues and how the art project has impacted this small fishing village on the southwest coast of Taiwan. Here is the link to the Blog about this international environmental art project: http://artproject4wetland.wordpress.com

Art Writing Project

Sculpture magazine, article about the fiber art sculptures of Sheila Hicks (http://sheilahicks.com)

I have completed the writing of a feature article for Sculpture magazine about the fiber art sculpture of Sheila Hicks, born in Nebraska and living in Paris, France. The article will be published in an upcoming issue of SCULPTURE, and my article features Sheila Hicks’s public art sculpture installation in New York City at the High Line titled “Hop, Skip, Jump and Fly – Escape from Gravity” that continues on view through March 2018, as well as her site specific installation at the Palace of Versailles (http://www.chateauversailles.fr/grands-formats/voyage-d-hiver#exposition), an exhibition at Museo Amparo, Mexico, on view until April 2, 2018 ( http://museoamparo.com/exposiciones/piezas/98/hilos-libres-el-textil-y-sus-rai-ces-prehispa-nicas-1954-2017) and the large retrospective exhibition of her work at Centre Pompidou in Paris, from Feb. 7 to April 30, 2018. (https://www.sortiraparis.com/arts-culture/exposition/articles/154611-sheila-hicks-l-art-du-textile-au-centre-pompidou#jjJvebrQubKgrAMT.01)

Please keep looking at my Blog https://janeingramallen.wordpress.com for updates on my artwork and art projects in 2018.

An article featuring my environmental art has just come out in the March 2018 issue of Estuary New (www.sfestuary.org}.

The article is titled “The Art of Environmental Restoration”:
http://www.sfestuary.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/EstuaryNewsMar2018-v6-WEB.pdf#page=16 The article is written by Bay Area independent science journalist, Robin Meadows,
https://about.me/robinmeadows

The article tells about my environmental art project for Santa Rosa, CA, that will be installed in early 2019 at a park in one of the areas of the city devastated by the recent wildfires. I am making a “Living Quilt for Santa Rosa” installation that will include a handmade paper quilt in the “flying geese” pattern that has seeds for wildflowers in the paper pulp to produce a living blooming artwork over time. Here are some photos of the “living” quilt in progress in my Santa Rosa studio.

Keep checking here for updates about the Santa Rose eco-quilt project.

Jane and her husband Tim will return to Cheng Long village in Taiwan this year from April 11 to May 14 for the 9th Anniversary of the international environmental art project that Jane curates.  This year the theme of the art project is “What a Difference 9 Years Makes”. Jane will supervise the 6 installations by returning artists from Japan, Indonesia, France, Italy and Taiwan. For more information and photos of the proposed artworks for 2018 see the Blog at https://artproject4wetland.wordpress.com

Jane started the Cheng Long Wetlands International Environmental Art Project in Taiwan in 2010 and since then the project has been going on annually with Jane curating the art project and selecting artists from around the world to create site-specific environmental art installations during a 25-day artist in residency in a small fishing village in Southwest Taiwan.  This photo shows an installation by Taiwanese artist Yi-chun Lo created in 2010.

In 2018 the art project will also include a symposium on “Environmental Art and Communities” and a reunion celebration May 11-14 with many of the artists that participated in the project before returning to the village as well as the 2018 selected artists.  This photo shows 2 installations in Cheng Long Wetlands in 2015.  The front artwork is “Earth” created by Italian artist Marisa Merlin, who is returning in 2018 to create another artwork. The artwork in back here is “Water Core” created by artist Roger Rigorth from Switzerland, now living in Germany.

For 2018 the Cheng Long art project invited only previous artists to submit a proposal, but in 2019 we expect to again have an open call for this environmental art residency project that offers selected artists a 25-day residency with airfare, accommodations, meals, volunteer help and materials help, plus a $2500 stipend. For announcements and photos of the project please look at the Blog at https://artproject4wetland.wordpress.com

On Saturday, Feb. 24, students in my “Exotic Fibers for Hand Papermaking” workshop learned to make handmade paper using 8 different plant fibers: kozo (Paper mulberry tree bark from Japan), lotka (Daphne bush bark from Nepal), abaca (a banana relative fiber from the Philippines), blue jean (cotton pulp from old recycled blue jeans), cedar (bark from cedar trees on the Oregon coast), eucalyptus (bark from local eucalyptus trees), Sitka spruce (bark from Sitka spruce trees on the Oregon coast) and Sitka sedge and beach grass (leaves from grass and wetlands plants along the Oregon coast). Students in the class were very creative and experimented with many different fibers and techniques. They learned to form sheets using the Japanese method with formation aid and multiple dips into the vats. Here are some photos of the workshop taken by my husband Timothy S. Allen (https://alltentimphotos2.wordpress.com)

Here are also some photos taken by one of the workshops participants, Tina Hittenberger, showing the hand beating of eucalyptus bark fiber on my Craig’s list-purchased table and the Japanese papermaking sugeta ( bamboo screen and wooden frame) that I got in Mino City, Japan, when I was an artist in residence at the Mino Paper Art Village Project in 1999-2000.  Tina also took some photos of the handmade paper artworks hanging to dry at the studio on Saturday.

 

I will be offering other hand papermaking workshops during the summer at my Santa Rosa studio, the Studio Santa Rosa, 3740 Finley Ave., Santa Rosa, CA.  Keep watching this Blog for announcements about future papermaking workshops, or contact me by email at info@janeingramallen.com

The Exotic Fibers Papermaking Workshop with Jane Ingram Allen will be from 10AM to 4 PM on Saturday, Feb. 24 at Studio Santa Rosa, 3740 Finley Ave., Santa Rosa, CA. This workshop is already full, but I plan to offer more papermaking workshops in the future. Keep watching this Blog for photos of the workshop and announcements about upcoming papermaking and art workshops.

These photos show a eucalyptus tree where I gathered the bark to make paper pulp for the workshop. The photo is by my husband Timothy S. Allen (https://allentimphotos2.wordpress.com) Keep watching this Blog for photos of the Exotic Fibers Workshop.

In this workshop students will learn about various exotic plant fibers and how to use them for handmade paper using Asian/Japanese techniques with Western and Japanese equipment and supplies. Some fibers we will use include kozo (Paper Mulberry tree bark), lotka (Daphne bush bark from Nepal), Sitka Spruce tree bark from the Oregon coast, Eucalyptus bark gathered in Santa Rosa, and other exotic fibers to create unique handmade paper.

The Introduction to Hand Papermaking Workshop in my Santa Rosa studio on Feb. 10 was loads of fun. Students learned how to make handmade paper with pulp from blue jeans, abaca (a type of banana leaf) and eucalyptus bark (gathered locally). Students also experimented with embossing, laminating and watermarking their handmade paper sheets.

These photos were taken by my husband Timothy S. Allen (http://allentimphotos2.wordpress.com) of the students working in my studio at Studio Santa Rosa, 2740 Wright Road, Studio 107. The students seemed to learn a lot in the one-day workshop and had very creative ideas for using handmade paper.

I also received some photos taken by one of the students of her experiments after her handmade paper had dried a bit. These photos are by Nora Fanshel and show some of her work made during the one-day workshop on Saturday after she did some other things like painting and mixed media on her handmade paper.

I will be teaching other workshops in my Santa Rosa studio. The next workshop is Saturday Feb. 24, “Exotic Fibers for Hand Papermaking”, and will include the Japanese technique for hand papermaking. This class is already full, but please contact me for information about future workshops at info@janeingramallen.com

Thanks to all who joined the workshop Saturday, and I look forward to seeing more of your handmade paper artworks.

  

On Saturday Feb. 10 I will teach a class “Introduction to Hand Papermaking.  I am happy to announce that the papermaking workshops are all full for the month of February. This Saturday, Feb. 10 I will be teaching a workshop titled “Introduction to Papermaking” that includes basic sheet forming with Western techniques using local and purchased pulps and exploring embossing, laminating and watermarking in handmade paper. I will post some photos of the workshop next week on this Blog.

I am also teaching a workshop on Papermaking with Exotic Fibers on Saturday Feb. 24. In this workshop students will learn how to make paper in the Japanese or Asian style and use fibers such as abaca, kozo, and local plant materials. I plan to offer more workshops in my Santa Rosa studio later in the Summer and Fall. Keep watching this Blog for posts about future papermaking workshops in my Santa Rosa studio.
Contact me by email at info@janeingramallen.com for more information.