ecological artist's work page

ecological artist's work page: Re-thinking Ancient and Contemporary Water Systems

2011-02-28T14:56:00.000-08:00

ecological artist's work page: Re-thinking Ancient and Contemporary Water Systems

Re-thinking Ancient and Contemporary Water Systems

2010-02-08T13:51:00.000-08:00

With heavier storm rains - global warming results? - I see more and more erosion and detrius in the storm water run-off. Living next to a bridge, it is quite obvious where all the residues from streets and roads go. Street drain systems in this town don't run to a water treatment facility -- they run directly into the nearest stream or river -- in my case the Medomak River, Waldoboro, Maine.

Last spring and summer, tidal clam flats were closed for almost the entirety of the clamming season. Families in this community were hurting because of it. An increasing trend? Storm water run-off contains innumerable contaminants, as well as high counts of bacteria that set off local 'Red Tide'.

A piece of site specific sculpture I have on view January through March 2010 at the Saco River Museum contains water from the Saco River along with detrius I collected from the riverside and mouth of the river. One section houses one lone cigarette butt -- famously discoloring the water -- but did you know that all the chemicals contained in one leftover cigarette butt -- you know the ones that seem to get constantly tossed out drivers' windows -- leaches innummerable chemicals that we can't see.

I just read a report from the Environmental Work Group that published the results of tests on the umbilical cords from ten babies - they found 300 chemicals or some unfathomable number near to that - present in BABIES!!! Truly, this must illustrate that our everyday practices are far from kosher and need severe modification. OK that's my rant for today.
Check out EWG for headline news reports on the true scope of our water pollution/ body burden problems at http://www.ewg.org/bodyburden/consumerproducts.

What's In YOUR Water? and Ecological Art as Gift essay

2009-04-22T19:54:00.000-07:00

"What's In YOUR Water?" is a continuing look at the visible and the invisible - the known and the unknown - what we consume - what we produce - and the need to change our lifestyle practices to ensure environmental survival.

Earth Day, 2009, Maine

2009-04-22T19:13:00.000-07:00

The Equation and the Unknown

The video 'Potential Effects / Cumulative Effects' is about an equation. How what we do as a culture has potential effects, not only on the environment, but on our very own genetics - endocrine disruptors, as they are scientifically named.

Consider the by-products of what we do as a culture as 'Factor C'. Consider our once-pristine environment as 'Factor E'. C + E =s WHAT??? We know for sure that what we've done during the last century into this new one, especially the past 50 years, are practices that are disrespectful of the environment. Would we have made those same choices if we had known those practices were going to follow us up the food chain? I doubt it. Common disrespect for other life forms with whom we share this planet is prevalent still, unfortunately. Granted, there was much ignorance about the effects of many pollutants back then - DDTs, PCBs, and the like.

Change

Change - it's deemed okay when it increases productivity, capitalism, the economy and our comfort zone. But what happens when we have to give up some of those comforts for necessary change? urgh. I tell you what, you'll see a heck of a lot of finger pointing going on - even some Cheshire Cat double pointing moves. Even more so when it comes to who will pay the clean up bill.

The Invisible + The Unknown =s "Who Done It?"

We didn't know that we didn't know . . . So much of what has been and continues to be dumped in the environment is invisible. And then there is the blatant, obvious gunk. Either way, it all adds up. We currently waste a lot of time and energy finger pointing at who is responsible for cleaning up these various toxic cocktails. While we're busy finger pointing, whole estuaries, streams, rivers, watersheds and even whole parts of the ocean now known as 'dead zones' are in extreme peril.

Microscopic Life + Toxic Waste =s Endocrine Disruptors
For many years, flushing it down the toilet, or down the sewer, or out into the ocean constituted 'effective waste dispersal'. There was a wide spread misconception that vast amounts of water would dilute any contaminants to such a degree that they were rendered inert. We didn't know that we didn't know . . . maybe a few did . . . maybe no one wanted to listen to them . . . labeled them as crackpots.

Flushing
Well, we all know now, I hope, that flushing is not an acceptable solution, no pun intended. Toxins settle into bottom sediment and come back to haunt us via the food chain; microscopic life eat through the sediment, as do all bottom feeder such as shellfish and crustaceans. As each consumer is consumed by a higher up on the food chain, the levels of toxins go from one part per million (a sometimes acceptable EPA rate) to many thousand times concentrated until it reaches us, the perpetrators. How about we stop producing anything with toxins? What an economic fiasco that would be. . .

Supply + Demand =s Genetically Altered Consumers
Oh, how inconvenient to not be able to purchase goods that we know, yes, we know, emit toxins -- plastics and petroleum products, drugs in our water sources, heavy metals, etc. Not to mention a moratorium on these such products would kill economic systems throughout the world. Until science catches up, and people stop finger pointing, we can each take part in the Earth's clean up in small, but collectively significant ways.

Green Choices + Green Politics =s the Beginnings of Positive Change
Collectively, you can make a difference. This is where you, the consumer, come into the healing part of the equation, rather than the polluting part of it. Make decisions to buy local, buy green, buy organic, buy whatever you can that you know is not contributing to the demise of the environment. If you buy only goods that are organic, and non-toxic (because even a few organics can be toxic!), then the demand for organics eliminates the demand for unsafe goods. Each choice adds up to a cleaner and healthier planet.

Time
It's taken a lifetime for 'being green' to catch on, but now it is actually and thankfully a trend. This brings us all some hope of a cleaner, safer environment. I mean, who wants to have a child with six arms, like the god Ganesh, and more than one sex? Vote green, buy green, live green. It's hard right now where science has not yet caught up to give us all affordable green possibilities in the way of fuel for either travel or heating purposes, but it will get there with your continued support.

In the mean time, you can do simple things to help;
Don't buy bottled water - a good deal of it is tap water anyway - refill a glass or metal thermos if you must have constant water by your side.
Invest in solar and wind power - we need to replace our dependency on fossil fuels.
Don't use lawn chemicals - it's amazing how many people are offended by crabgrass or dandelions as opposed to
transgendered mutations
No dumping or flushing unwanted materials down the toilet, drain or oceans anymore - waste water treatment plants are not
equipped to 'scrub' out the hundreds of chemicals that pass through the waters up stream - and people downstream are drinking all that stuff - ugh.

In general, let's be good to the earth. Change is difficult, but we need to make Earth Day every day.

Regeneration through Entropy / artist statement

2008-08-13T12:06:00.000-07:00

What's in YOUR Water?

MFA Thesis: 'Half Full/Half Empty: A Process of Regeneration through Entropy' by Krisanne Baker
request a copy by contacting the author through e-mail at bakerk93@yahoo.com

The following works were exhibited at Vermont College of Fine Arts Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts Summer Residency, July and August, 2008.

Water Core installation shot: Recycled glass containers cut, filled with various water samples and sealed into individual biospheres. Dimensions: 3 1/2 inches by 96 inches with metal stands. 6 water core structures configured in a spiral (representing homage to Smithson's 'Spiral Jetty') with 5 gallons glass jugs of water inverted into the ground/underground LED lighting at night/as a walking path to observe and interact with the space of the water cores.

Water Core individual titles:
Algae Fuel Cells (algae pond water with visible plant and animal life through growth and decay); What is Waste?-- Contents: Questionable (samples of suspicious or contaminated waters; Road Warrior (roadside rust debris and ditch rain run-off waters); Medomak Pond: Inland to Coastal Trace (samples from 3 feet below sea level Friendship Harbor, Maine up the Medomak River estuary to the Town Landing in Waldoboro, Maine, following upriver to the final source of the river in at Medomak Pond in Washington, Maine), and Invisible Threats (tap water donated by 26 inviduals from various U.S. locations)

Many thanks to all friends, family and colleagues who graciously donated water samples for this collaborative environmental sculpture concerning water quality and the question: What's in YOUR Water?

Other images:

'Water Shade'
by Krisanne Baker 2008 (dimensions variable)
this installation: 32" wide by 9' in height
various waters, 250lb monofilament, plastic bags, acrylic bars

36 plastic bags filled with alternating waters of rust and sedimentations and algae pond waters: questioning how we perceive growth and decay. What is waste? and what is the cycle of energies between regeneration and entropy?

Litmus Test: Process Drawing Process
by Krisanne Baker 2008

Drawings for the 'water core' series cut and placed in 6' high tubes of water samples relating to the above 'water core' series.

Krisanne Baker
Artist Statement 2008

Earthwork artist Robert Smithson’s 1968 essay ‘Sedimentations of the Mind’ inspires many of my works incorporating the concept of entropy—or the spiraling process of things falling apart - and the way our culture continues to layer refuse. Conversely, as a contemporary environmental artist, my new work explores a theme of regeneration; or how we might reverse the energy (or at least our perception of what is useable energy vs. waste) in an entropic situation into one of renewal or sustainable growth.

My work reflects a deep concern for the current perils of water—from the local to the global. Trained as a painter, my current work incorporates a sculptural collage of ideas and materials used to express concepts of threat, apprehension, and survival in matters of our environment. Within this work, I hope to create an awareness that may, in turn, help bring about positive changes to our failing environmental systems. From the world’s largest oceans to it’s smallest tributaries and aquifers, water sustains our lives. We are as seduced by it’s beauty as we are drawn to its risks. Faced with environmental uncertainties, we need to rethink assumptions relating to conditions within reach of and beyond our own experiences. My practice is a call to remember the limits (and possibilities) of systems; of the give and take between this planet and its inhabitants--that what we do upstream effects downstream.

all images copyright K. Baker 2008

Ecological Apocalypse: The Absence of Water

2008-03-11T08:09:00.000-07:00

Desertiifcation is already happening in parts of our world.

Someone in a previous residency at Vermont College of Fine Arts said to me, "well, if it's all about the water, do you need to make work that has actual water in it?" Funny, because the residency before that some asked if it was about the water, why not use actual water.

Thinking about the absence of water, the following pieces came about:

installation view: desertification apocalypse
materials: tires, wire, clay, dvd with audio

Viewers are invited to walk into the space created by the installation.
Ideally, it would be installed in a room by itself with no windows,
lighting above would produce many ominous cast shadows on the walls,
clay on floor would cover entire floor - if viewer wants to see video
component in hole in center of installation, viewer must walk over
the clay, cracking it further.

Sedimented Aquifer
12" x 12" x 12"
clay, bags of water, found object rust, plexiglass

Inspired by Robert Smithson's "Sedimentations of the Mind" and
Mierle Laderman Ukeles landfill work in Israel, this piece is for the
viewer to consider the state of any water that is trapped within
continually layered debris and earth, and the condition of that water.

Currently on view at Waterfall Arts, 'Treading Lightly' exhibition,
Belfast, Maine.

Consumer Cloud
bottles, tank, skull, clay, metal rods
Bottled water: the privitization and globalization of water that we
contribute to as individual consumers - through the purchase of
bottled spring water.

Why do we purchase water? Do you not trust tap water?

This piece is currently in process.
The final piece will have a cloud formation (made up of empty water
bottles) from the ceiling with lower bottles positioned as though
they are pouring out their contents into the desertified tank.

Concerning Water: The Lost Seas of Earth drawings

2007-10-02T05:33:00.000-07:00

Water as a Human Rights Issue: How Artists Are Bringing Awareness and Activisim To This Environmental Crisis Through Art

2007-10-01T10:29:00.000-07:00

The drawings posted here reflect concern for what I imagine the earth may be like with no water at all
as in
The Lost Seas of Venus and Mars.

de•sert•i•fi•ca•tion: the process of becoming aridland or desert (as from land mismanagement or climate change).
[Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary]

Can you imagine the Atlantic and Pacific desertified?
Deep caverns empty and cracked?
Will our planet follow the same fate as Mars?
I fear it will someday unless we make some radical changes to our standards of living and consumption.

Nature is being changed by humankind through industry, transportation, consumption of products, and the choices that we make (or not) in relation to sustainable living on Earth. This semester of research through the MFA-VA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts guided by my mentor, ecological artist Aviva Rahmani will continue researching the effects of human life on the environment, particularly water. Thesis writings will be guided by Dont Rhine of the AIDS activist collaborative UltraRed.

There is a water crisis on this planet. In too many countries, water that has been polluted beyond potability by chemicals and disease is the only water available for people to drink. Privitization and globalization has contributed to the disparity between those that have plenty, and those that are dying of thirst and water borne diseases. The building of dams, the loss of riparian water rights, chemical pollutants from industry, the unsustainable overuseage of water in the agribusiness of nonindigenous plant species, and the ravaging of our climate and normal weather patterns due to global warming heightening worldwide drought and flood conditions.

This semester I'm looking specifically at artists who are bringing awareness or activism to environmental problems. If you haven't yet see the exhibition "Weather Report: Art and Climate Change" of 51 ecological artists at the Boulder Musuem of Contemporary Art in Colorado, curated by Lucy Lippard, then GO! It's up until early December -- the show has work by such a diverse manner of artists working in vastly different types of media, but all are concerned with the survival of this planet and it's inhabitants. The catalogue for the exhibition has some great essays and photos of works in the show. Also, check out www.greenmuseum.org for more eco-art info.

The Known and the Unknown in Relation to Water

2007-08-17T18:55:00.000-07:00

This semester with my mentor, ecological artist Aviva Rahmani, has seen a pivot in my work and way of thinking. This new work embodies my life long concern for the environment, especially water, through two installation projects:

a chemical run-off reflecting pool
entitled 'Potential Effects'

and

a video porthole
entitled '57 Breaths'.

Both pieces began with the concept of the unknown and the known in relation to water content and water quality. It's possible to run the psychological gamut when pondering the surface of water versus the content and quality of what's below.

The Chemical Run-off Reflecting Pool is a grid of water-filled pyrex glass dishes containing unfired gray clay chemical names which slowly sediment out into the individual pools of water over a period of time. The names of the chemicals (listed in a previous blog) were the result of researching the contents of common water run-offs from all over the United States. Cross referencing the lists, I came up with this long list of 33 chemicals that are present in everyone's local waters, but can not be seen. A surrounding statement in fired clay script lettering reads,

" The potential effects of many substances on humans and aquatic ecosystems is not clearly understood."
(Possibly an unnecessary underscore.)

Historically, a reflecting pool is for meditative purposes, the viewer using the surface for identity and introspective purposes. My use of this reflecting pool is for the viewer to ponder this new information, this concern of water quality, and how it will effect our lives globally.

The video porthole is most definitely psychological and physiological in presentation. The viewer consciously or unconsciously becomes aware of their breath while watching the underwater video through a small porthole. The intention of this piece is simply for the viewer to notice their associations with water, comfort zones, fears, etc.

This semester's readings with Vermont College Faculty Advisor and Art Activist Dont Rhine will be as follows:
Vandana Shiva's Water Wars: Privitization, Pollution and Profit
Kaja Silverman's The Threshold of Desire
Paolo Virno's The Grammar of the Multitude
Jacqueline Rose's The Last Resistance
James Petras' Social Movement and State Power
as well as Globalization Unmasked: Imperialism in the 21st Century
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire
as well as Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire
Michel Foucault's Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences
Gilles DeLeuze's A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
and
Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison's Arrested Rivers project
Labels: Why is water a human justice issue?: Privitization and Globalization of Worldwide Waters

Explorations in Time Based Surfaces

2007-06-03T15:39:00.000-07:00

Vermont College Semester 1 Readings:
Marie Shurkus, Visual Culture Advisor
Dozier Bell, Artist Teacher

Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens: How Synesthetes Color Their World by Patricia Lynn Duffy
The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property by Lewis Hyde
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks
Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings by Robert Smithson
Felix Gonzalez-Torres by Miwon Kwon
Another Water (the River Thames, for Example) by Roni Horn
Dictionary of Water by Roni Horn
Landscape and Power by W.J.Thomas Mitchell
Allegorical Impulse by Craig Owens
Grids by Rosalind Krauss
Entropy: A New World Order by Jeremy Rifkin

Studio based work was influenced in part by all of the above readings.
Images copyright Krisanne Baker.

Found Object Sculpture
and
Painting Journal sequences selected from August 2006 - February 2007:

addditional water projects

2007-05-17T11:25:00.000-07:00

Besides the underwater film projected onto water surface installation . . .

Gallery installation:
Small dim room - probably empty - possibly containing several cases of bottled water stacked to seating height.
At end of room is one porthole which shows mostly a just under the surface water video. About every twenty seconds the view will flip up to show just a bit of sky and then slip back down below the surface. This will be managed with a dvd screen mounted just behind the porthole. The footage will be a loop. Thoughts about sound, if I include, possibly recorded sounds from tub filled with water as body rubs against it - low frequency whale-like noises. The idea of the installation plays with the viewer's breath in response to the space and location of the potential space.

Based on readings on Robert Smithson's 'Sedimentation,' I began to think about underground layers in conjunction with the layers we create - ie: landfills and how that can effect or trap ground water.
From bottom up, first piece is based on layers of granite and mica, then soil, roots, rust, metal - entrapping a clear water source lit from behind. The contents of this piece are sandwiched between two layers of glass about two and a half inches apart.

Sedimentation #2
A variation with less use of natural materials concentrating more on juxtaposition of man-made refuse (cans) and more layers of water. Bottom part has separated layers of water and cans - top part has cans within the water.

Entropic measurement
Bags of water and cans, stacked vertically, stapled to wall. Bottom layer has crushed rusted can, moving up to crushed non rusted cans, with whole newer can at top. In bottom layer, rust is heavily diffusing into water. top is still clear.

Entropic Clock
Is actually the remains of dismantled Sedimentation #2 piece. Looked so much like a mantle clock, I hated to take that apart too. Water bag inside clock does not contain any rust, but instead is clear. Needs work.

Wade In
Installation of exploded steel belted radials - pieces suspended from gallery ceiling so they are about thigh high. Below is a gelatin cylinder layered from deep blue on floor up to green to light green to brown on surface just below the steel belted radials. Needs work. No photos posted yet.

All other photos of models or works are posted on previous blog.

2007-05-07T15:09:00.000-07:00

Water as Site

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Further Explorations Into Obsessions with Water: (all photos copyrighted by Krisanne Baker unless otherwise noted)

Site Specificity to Water: Relationships to Water Spaces and Places.

This research will investigate relationships of locational identity, space and place as a means to discover artistic strengths in contemporary works using or referencing water. In myriad ways, water comes into daily play connecting our bodies to the world through social, political, environmental, historical, physical, and/or psychological connections. Does this relation to water need to be site-specific, or can it be locationally-informed by a site? Some examples of works by artists Roni Horn, Mierle Ukeles, and Alfredo Jaar will be examined in terms of how the work is site-specific or locationally informed, as well as how water is a connecting structure in our lives.

Readings on the works of Roni Horn, Another Water (the River Thames, for Example); as well as works by Alfredo Jaar (specifically Untitled (Water) and his Geography =s War series; works by Mierle Laderman Ukeles (particularly her early works of Hartford Wash - Inside and Hartford Wash - Outside, Fresh Kills Landfill Project, and proposed projects for a Hiriya landfill in Israel using water and methane as purifiers and indicators of toxicity, and the Schuylkill River project in Philadelphia. Shifting identity, the seen and the unseen are common content for the works whether looking from a socio/political aspect as does Jaars; as an ecological artist like Ukeles with feminist/humanist basis; or a postmodern minimalist investigating shifting identities as does Horn. Helen Molesworth's May 2007 ArtForum review of Robert Gober's works at the Schaulager says, "When all these installations are brought together, we may finally see that water is both the medium and the message." My research and work seek the same knowledge.

Also reading
Miwon Kwon's One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity;
Yi-Fu Tuan's Space and Place: the Perspective of Experience; and
Lucy Lippard's Lure of the Local, among others.

My work this semester, visual culture research as well as studio projects, centers on Water as Site. Through the Vermont College Masters of Fine Arts in Visual Arts program, I am currently working with Faculty Advisor Lana Lin on Visual Culture research. My artist teacher this semester is Aviva Rahmani of Vinalhaven, Maine and NYC. I greatly appreciate Aviva's experience with the environment and her work with water. (See her website: www.ghostnets.com).

• outdoor installation of 10' x 2' x 6" water pool upon which surface I will project underwater images, continuing working with the known and the unknown. Still in the experimental stages of what projects best on to the what and what should line the plexiglass water pool, the water may also include frosted vellum textual contents of runoff water as well as the end statement at the very bottom of the list:

Lead
Polychlorinated biphenyls PCBs
Polycyclic aromatic hrdrocarbons PAHs
Organochlorine pesticides
Aldrin
Dieldrin
Endrin
DDT
DDD
Chlordane
Heptachlor
Mirex
Toxaphene
Hexachlorobenzene
Glyphosphate Herbicide
Nitrate
Nitrite
Methyl Bromide
Phosphorus
Ammonium
Pharmaceuticals
Acenaphthene
Asphalt
Fluroanthene
Carbon
Radionuclides
Mercury
Selenium
Radon
Radium
Oxytetracicline
Ormetroprin
Sulfadimethoxine

Abnormal physiological processes and reproductive impairment
Increased incidences of cancer
The development of antibiotic resistant bacteria
The potential increased toxicity of chemical mixtures

For many of the above listed substances, the potential effects on humans and aquatic ecosystems are not clearly understood.

Paintings Collages Drawings

2006-01-09T15:17:00.000-08:00

Most recently completed oil encaustic painting with rust collage,
December 2005.
"Returning"
12 inches high by 32 inches length

The rust used in this work is juxtaposed against a landscape background. The landscape is the environment as perceived by the collection of senses, rather than simply a visual. Although working on a visual level, I work toward encompassing the viewer in more senses than visual; spacial, tactile, air quality, etc.

Imagery I'm working with lately using rust - minerals previously of the earth in a natural state, manipulated for the use of man; cars, building structures, etc. - the rust now degrading and returning to a semi-natural state. Water imagery I am trying to paint as one would feel the motion, waves, ripples, currents upon the body. In "Returning" the water is used as a vehicle to give historical context to the decline of the rust structures through erosion of the elements over time.

This piece is composed to draw the viewer into it's space; will you step through the columns of rust into a natural void? or walk along the path followed by the structure?

Works I am currently studying include: Pollock, Kiefer, Serra, Goldsworthy, Asian Sumi-e, Matisse.
Readings and research from: Bachelard, T.C. McLuhan, Diane Ackerman.