There is no point in coming up with the right answer when it will inevitably be wrong. Every philosophy will turn against itself, the object or the system will always crush its originator’
-Robert Smithson-
My process begins with looking, searching for moments of natural beauty. I find them on my walks through the Fenway, The Santa Monica Mountains, the Pacific Ocean and others. There are moment of intense complexity that strike me; a deep hue of a color; plants in the process of living and dying. When I find these beautiful moments I cut them from their environments, on my knees I cut a square through the earth with a trowel or a knife, defining the edges of my specimen from the natural world. I excise these moments from their environment, specimenized; leaving behind the behind a small scar in the earth usually an inverted pyramid. I place the cut item inside of a bag and return the specimen to the studio.
Inside my studio I cut and shave the specimens to a useful shape and size, focusing on beauty minimalism, and ability to be fully submerged in my resin bath. I try to remove any worms and insects so as to reduce any unnecessary suffering. Resin is combined with a hardener, mixed and poured over the specimens. The process is chemical, an exothermic reaction that boils the water and air from the specimens. The resin hardens around the specimens as it is finally cut irreversibly from its natural life cycle. Suspended in hardened resin the natural objects dies but it does not rot.
I return the object to the ‘natural world’ and bury it so the surface is flush with the ground level. I photograph this transposition and juxtaposition between two environments; the living and the dead, the natural and the altered. The specimen sets a spot of preserved beauty against the backdrop of every changing nature.
No, that’s not quite right.
I make a piece of the natural world into ornamentation and place it inside a park inside a city, or hidden by the beach in a tourist town. The strict dichotomy between the ‘natural’ and the human made is fundamentally flawed: it requires acting as though the human condition is unaffected by the state of the natural. Or that the space under my foot immediately becomes ‘unnatural’ due to the weight of my body pressing down into soil. And if we view ‘nature’ as dichotomous to ‘humanity’ there is very little land that is untouched by the effects of humanity. Human made micro-plastics sink deep into the unexplored oceans, lead can be found deep inside of glaciers because of our years of lead fuels, we have introduced invasive species intentionally and unintentionally that have now irrevocably changed ecosystems.
That being said I have little patience for those who justify inaction through the flawed logical proof
A: Humans are Animals
B: Animals are Natural and nature is good
C: Human actions are therefore Natural
D: Pollution, hunting, destruction of natural environments, and mass extinctions are therefore natural and inevitable
Instead I choose to minimize harm to the environment, create and preserve beauty and make thoughtful art.
In the Other lands project I ask others to help me with this by bringing elements from their environments for me to preserve. I envision this artwork not as a monumental piece of work to change the face of the landscape. Instead I aim to create small hidden moments of beauty that can be searched for and found for those with the knowledge and curiosity, to look. Searchers could find rocks from Utah encased and transplanted in Boston, or moss from the Fenway preserved and buried in the desert. The specimens will remain unchanging separated by an impenetrable border from the environment around it unaffecting, and unaffected.
-Robert Smithson-
My process begins with looking, searching for moments of natural beauty. I find them on my walks through the Fenway, The Santa Monica Mountains, the Pacific Ocean and others. There are moment of intense complexity that strike me; a deep hue of a color; plants in the process of living and dying. When I find these beautiful moments I cut them from their environments, on my knees I cut a square through the earth with a trowel or a knife, defining the edges of my specimen from the natural world. I excise these moments from their environment, specimenized; leaving behind the behind a small scar in the earth usually an inverted pyramid. I place the cut item inside of a bag and return the specimen to the studio.
Inside my studio I cut and shave the specimens to a useful shape and size, focusing on beauty minimalism, and ability to be fully submerged in my resin bath. I try to remove any worms and insects so as to reduce any unnecessary suffering. Resin is combined with a hardener, mixed and poured over the specimens. The process is chemical, an exothermic reaction that boils the water and air from the specimens. The resin hardens around the specimens as it is finally cut irreversibly from its natural life cycle. Suspended in hardened resin the natural objects dies but it does not rot.
I return the object to the ‘natural world’ and bury it so the surface is flush with the ground level. I photograph this transposition and juxtaposition between two environments; the living and the dead, the natural and the altered. The specimen sets a spot of preserved beauty against the backdrop of every changing nature.
No, that’s not quite right.
I make a piece of the natural world into ornamentation and place it inside a park inside a city, or hidden by the beach in a tourist town. The strict dichotomy between the ‘natural’ and the human made is fundamentally flawed: it requires acting as though the human condition is unaffected by the state of the natural. Or that the space under my foot immediately becomes ‘unnatural’ due to the weight of my body pressing down into soil. And if we view ‘nature’ as dichotomous to ‘humanity’ there is very little land that is untouched by the effects of humanity. Human made micro-plastics sink deep into the unexplored oceans, lead can be found deep inside of glaciers because of our years of lead fuels, we have introduced invasive species intentionally and unintentionally that have now irrevocably changed ecosystems.
That being said I have little patience for those who justify inaction through the flawed logical proof
A: Humans are Animals
B: Animals are Natural and nature is good
C: Human actions are therefore Natural
D: Pollution, hunting, destruction of natural environments, and mass extinctions are therefore natural and inevitable
Instead I choose to minimize harm to the environment, create and preserve beauty and make thoughtful art.
In the Other lands project I ask others to help me with this by bringing elements from their environments for me to preserve. I envision this artwork not as a monumental piece of work to change the face of the landscape. Instead I aim to create small hidden moments of beauty that can be searched for and found for those with the knowledge and curiosity, to look. Searchers could find rocks from Utah encased and transplanted in Boston, or moss from the Fenway preserved and buried in the desert. The specimens will remain unchanging separated by an impenetrable border from the environment around it unaffecting, and unaffected.
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