Waterfall Arts presents Still Water Co-Director Joline Blais talking about her work in ecology, the New Commons, and cross-cultural networking on Monday 26 April at 7pm.
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Tags: art, Belfast, GreenHouse, LongHouse, network, New Media, presentation, sharing, Still Water, sustainability
On March 30, 2010, Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito present “Beyond Facebook: From Cliques to Kinship” as part of the University of Maine’s Women in the Curriculum and Women’s Studies Program.
Tags: education, LongHouse, network, orono, presentation, privacy, sharing, society, Still Water, University of Maine
Still Water has been awarded a Maine Water Resources Research Institute grant for a community-based ecological intervention that is creative and practical at the same time. The project takes place at LongGreenHouse, a site at the southern edge of the Orono campus dedicated to the intersection of old and new models of sustainability.
The initiative will take a core Permaculture design principle–”the problem is the solution”–and focus energy on transforming a current economic and ecological liability (stormwater run-off) into an educational and economic asset (collaborative ecological restoration and food production). In the process–via online documentation, social networking, and artists’ engagement–this LongGreenHouse project will raise public awareness of the effectiveness of collaborative and ecological designs.
The application received the highest score of relevance from all three of its reviewers, who noted:
“I have met with the investigators and am convinced that their work will be of the highest caliber. They are inventive and dedicated and have been inspirational to students and faculty on campus.”
“This proposal’s potential value to society is great–especially in an increasingly resource constrained world where current human behavior, technologies and development patterns are nearly completely unsustainable and in need of deep redesign….its integration of art, community and design engineers holds the potential to communicate the culture-shift necessary to move up-stream and eventually eliminate many of the toxic and organic sources of waste currently entering water ways.”
Tags: grant, GreenHouse, LongHouse, Still Water, sustainability, University of Maine
A new University of Maine class in Life Art (NMD430/520) explores the boundaries of artistic collaboration by encouraging students to co-create with entire ecosystems of humans and other critters.
Life artists may :
- Crowd-source their artmaking with 10,000 earthworms.
- Get frogs to do their drawings for/with them.
- Create sculpture ‘for the birds’ so they can survive destroyed migratory paths across continents.
- Clone cruelty-free meat via the latest gene manipulation.
- Get Michelle Obama to “perform” their art piece.
- Plan an art opening with full course cross-species meals (eg for human and geese).
Student projects may draw from indigenous culture, digital culture, and/or permaculture, and will be featured in an exhibition at the end of the term. The course takes place at the Hutchinson Center in Belfast, Maine and is organized by Joline Blais in collaboration with Waterfall Arts and Unity College.
This New Media class is open to graduate students, qualified undergraduates, and members of the community. For more information, contact Joline Blais.
Tags: art, Belfast, class, GreenHouse, LongHouse, New Media, Still Water, sustainability, University of Maine, Wabanaki
As the final speaker in the panel discussion “Re-Imagining Globalism: Maine in the World’s Economy” at Bates College on Jan. 25, 2008, Peter Riggs, Executive Director of the Forum on Democracy and Trade, concluded his talk on climate change and international relations with a call for a new kind of creativity:
“Probably the most exciting part of looking ahead to what is a climate-constrained world, is the opportunity of new art forms to emerge. If cinema was the artform of the twentieth century, I submit to you that the artform of the twenty-first century is going to be–and it’s performance art by the way–restoration ecology.”
The talk was featured in Maine Public Radio’s “Speaking in Maine” series; mp3 and podcast available.
For reference, here’s a longer transcription of Riggs concluding remarks.
“Finally, since we are in a liberal arts school, I think probably the most exciting part of looking ahead to what is a climate-constrained world, is the opportunity of new art forms to emerge. If cinema was the art form of the twentieth century, I submit to you that the art form of the twenty-first century is going to be–and it’s performance art by the way–restoration ecology. Because we’re going to get really good at understanding how to rebuild ecosystems on their timescale and their timeframes, and that interrogative process of what ecosystems need to flourish, particularly in a time of atmospheric change, will teach us a lot. And I personally look forward to more engagement on the art and science of restoration ecology, because I really think that’s the future.”
Tags: economics, GreenHouse, Maine, Still Water, sustainability, Wassookeag
Archimedes was wrong: the tool most people use to move the earth is the mattock. Although often overshadowed by its big brother, the pickaxe, the mattock works on a human rather than industrial scale.
You find pickaxes in diamond mines and labor camps, where burley men with short lifespans heave them to gouge precious bits out of the earth and feed multinational corporations. You find mattocks in backyards, where everyday gardeners and homeschooled kids sculpt the soil into strawberry pyramids, herb spirals, and swales that catch rainfall and regenerate life.
Garden overrun with Himalayan balsam? Pry that sucker out with the pointy end. Want to aerate the topsoil without tilling? Stab it with those three prongs on the other end. Nail sticking out of your porch? Hammer it back in with the metal collar on the side. (Admit it, mattock owners, you know you’ve done it.)
In Future Scenarios: How Communities Can Adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change, permaculture guru David Holmgren argues that ecological solutions on the energetic and geographic scale of corporations and nations (“brown tech”) are doomed to devolve to lifeboat scenarios, when their mining of energy to feed themselves rather than people crashes the ecosystems upon which these hierarchies depend. Simpler solutions at the village and township scale offer our best shot at making it to the 22nd century, because larger farm machines fail not only energetically, but psycho-socially. The carrying capacity of the earth is directly linked to the caring capacity of the beings that tend it.
The “earth stewards” of Holgrem’s ideal future would be well served to find a blacksmith with enough iron ore to make them a collection of mattocks. A mattock is a tool not only for moving the earth, but for moving the human heart closer to it.
Tags: GreenHouse, sustainability, Wassookeag
Join facilitator Bill Giordano
at LongGreenHouse
Wed, May 27, 3:30 pm
5 Chapel Road, Orono
Sheet-mulch gardening is a no-till method for making raised beds. Abundant organic materials such as grass cippings, animal bedding, leaves, manure, newspaper, cardboard, mulching hay, straw and more can be layered on top of earth rather than yearly tilling. All materials break down and become nutrients for the soil food web. Sheet-mulched beds maximize soil health and minimize watering, mineral leaching weeding, and human input for years to come!
Come get your hands in the soil and your heart closer to the earth!
During the month of May, we’ll be planting a dozens of fruit trees, hundreds of berry plants, flowers and annuals at LongGreenHouse and sneaking onto university grounds, along the Food Corridor. Main gardeners will include Bill Giordano, Joline Blais, Isis Bell, and gkisedtanamoogk, with help from 3-yr old Ellie.
If you help us plant, you will earn funds in our local currency, which you can then spend on our eventual harvest. More important, you will be helping us seed a food forest that will spread through the campus, ensuring local food security, and you will be learning some permaculture techniques, like sheet mulching, guild building, and berry pyramid building.
Some key dates are below:
Main Tree planting: May 2-7
Kiwi & Berry Shrubs: May 11 & 16
Strawberry Pyramid: May 19 or 21
Other fruit Trees: Last two weeks of May.
For more info, contact Bill or Joline
You weren’t meant to have a Job
“I was in Africa last year and saw a lot of animals in the wild that I’d only seen in zoos before. It was remarkable how different they seemed. Particularly lions. Lions in the wild seem about ten times more alive. They’re like different animals. And seeing those guys on their scavenger hunt was like seeing lions in a zoo after spending several years watching them in the wild…
What’s so unnatural about working for a big company? The root of the problem is that humans weren’t meant to work in such large groups.”
Wassookeag will be gathering all our supplies for a local food fest: chicken eggs from Cheryl, Duck eggs from Kai & Ryan, pancake mix from scratch by Amanda, and maple syrup from the silver maple in the back yard!
Come celebrate the onset of spring (rain is good!)
Bring fruits, or beverage if you like.
