Okay, so you probably know that I have been working on the Seeding the City project for over two years now. And this past September the project launched! YAY! It was a long time in the planning stages.

So the point of the project was to find a handful of people who were interested in installing small green roof modules (little trays of green roof that were less than 2′x4′). These people were then to reach out to their friends/neighbors to interest them in putting modules on their roofs too. The goals were to create a network of people in a region who were all interested in urban environmental issues and spark a wave of green roof building – more on all that here.

So it started slowly with a few people interested – I kind of thought there would be loads of people who wanted a free green roof! Then I started to get interest from institutions, and although this wasn’t the intended audience, it seemed like a good idea anyway. So when we went to install the first modules the comments were along the lines of “that’s it?” “that’s so easy!” — and I realized (after my great experience with the planting program with Covenant House) that there was some other potential here. So I brought up the idea of doing a planting program with the residents of this particular institution. If they cover the costs (at just over $1,000) we could do run a half day workshop and by the end of that they would have a larger green roof – about 2,000 square feet worth!

I have since planted at a pre-school, an environmental organization and another school, all of whom are interested in doing planting workshops in the spring! So that is 4 more green roofs than NYC had before I started the project.

So, while I may not (yet) be getting the broad reach that I had hoped for, I am getting to install some larger scale green roofs with some great people. And the green roof education reaches a broad base of people who will one day build their own networks…

The other morning I tweeted about having some ideas on designing curriculum around social interventionist art. A few things got me thinking about this, 1) conversations i have had with similar artists about the somewhat unique set of skills needed to create s.i.a, 2) a friend who just got a job designing new curriculum on educational studies for a uni here in nyc (she’s brilliant, it will be amazing) 3) my own interest in teaching/sharing.*

I have some ideas about what kind of coursework could be offered.

Core (required) curriculum:

• Specific art history covering russian constructivists, dadaism, fluxus, happenings, street & guerilla art, artists like beuys, hamish fulton, richard long. Including contemporary artists. Would also cover history of propaganda, political actions and visual communications (design & marketing). This may need to be two semesters
• Studio practice, which might be the course I currently want to teach. Getting students out into communities to put their learnings into practice, surveying, researching, designing, creating. This maybe would be 2nd year, first year might be more conceptual practices.
• Tools of research. This would cover surveying & questioning methods, including how to structure questions. Learning how to use various tools to research data, understanding how to read and interpret data. And finally, statistical analysis, determining metrics and measuring impact.
• Communications. This is definitely a two semester (or more) course. Includes verbal communications: pitching your project, networking, public speaking, media training, speaking with the public, argumentative training & persuasive skills. There would also be training on how to communicate through the written form (effective email communications, writing press releases, using technology to document & promote your work) and visually (communicating ideas through drawing and computer generated imagery)
• Effective proposal writing, including researching grants, writing different types of applications, grant reporting and metrics.
• Fundraising – how to write contracts and mou’s, researching and approaching corporate sponsors, fiscal sponsorship, writing appeal letters, managing donations, online fundraising, hosting fundraising events, and getting in-kind donations.

Some of the elective courses could be:

• Contemporary social issues: environment, food politics, social justice, women’s issues, international issues
• Urban planning & design: overview of basics, with emphasis on infrastructure, public spaces, transportation (this could be 2 semesters too)
• History of public art: survey of more traditional methods and models, also would include murals
• Computer 3d modeling: i don’t think this needs explanation right?
• History of social movements
• Survey courses on specific topics: history of nyc (or city in which the course is taught), histories of specific social movements (offering more in depth information than course above)

This was the rough draft (written on my phone). Anyone want to support a larger development of the curriculum? Anyone have any thoughts or am I missing something?

*My interest in teaching/sharing is this: I truly believe in sharing knowledge as a means to elevate anyone and everyone. However I don’t have any desire for teaching to be my life. I’m thinking one course is enough.

and yes, this is something that i do in my “free time” – i think about things and i write them down. that’s why i want to start my own well funded think tank

images (top to bottom):
Brian D. Collier: Habitat Acquisition
New York Times Special Edition

So you’ve heard me call for it before (and mentioned here and here) – a union of artists. To ensure fair pay and fair practices. So that we quit underselling ourselves. So that institutions realize the full value of the work that an artist puts into creating the finished piece (whatever form that might take).

Evan Roth recently posted his thoughts on attending sxsw as an unpaid participant, someone else (i can’t remember) reposted it and commented on it as well. It’s the same discussion I have with artists time after time, everyone else is getting paid, why not the artists? (Although some curator friends of mine often do work for free as well – which is equally as crazy). If everyone from the prepator, to the pr person, to the admin, to the cleaning crew, to the printing press is getting paid for the work they do to make a show happen – why aren’t the artists getting paid?

Rally at Chicago NLRB – 4, originally uploaded by carlosjwj.

I even believe that if someone wants to include your work in a show without the intention of selling it (even if it is documentation of a work – i.e. a dvd or photos), you, as the artist should be paid. It still cost you money (probably a lot of it) to produce the work, document the work etc. Why should private donors & funders help pay for work and then institutions get to build their business off showcasing that work.

So maybe it is time for an artist union. There are some other really interesting people thinking about it too. The hurdle is getting widespread acceptance, and I think to do that we have to get institutional support as well (a promise from galleries or museums to only represent members of the union).

I was looking at the history of the Screen Actor’s Guild for inspiration (it seems a similar trajectory) and indeed, the big turn happened when producer’s supported the actors.

So, what are your thoughts?

Floating Trash Island by Rhizome Collective

I am currently working on a proposal for a project which invites communities to build floating islands and moor them off coastal city parks. The project was inspired in part by Smithson’s Floating Island and in part by the need/desire to create a water remediation project for the city – we are after all 3 islands and a peninsula.

I have a couple of other projects this year that are on the more purely conceptual side of my practice – documenting invisible maps and tracing paths of desire based on history and contemporary infrastructure. Both of these seek to create a connection to our landscape in a new way that encourages further observation and understanding. Neither of these is “issue based” or “environmental” except maybe tangentally. This is fine with me, as I am coming to understand, I am most interested in landscape, and if it intersects with environmental or social issues all the better.

The floating island project though strikes me as a different animal, it is way less conceptual and completely based on being a remediation project. It is something that an environmental organization could just as easily be organizing as me. (Actually maybe easier since they have institutional support).

So, because I, as an artist, am creating the project, is it art? Does it matter?

ps thanks to rhizome collective for the floating trash island instructions and their great book Toolbox for Sustainable City Living!

I had a really interesting conversation with a professor from Pratt’s Visual Criticism studies program. We were discussing my participation in this semester’s colloquium, which would focus on Landscape*.

He felt I would be a good participant because my work so often was focused on making the invisible visible in landscapes (I am paraphrasing greatly). It really got me to thinking about how I define my work. He struck a very true chord with me.

I have always felt uncomfortable with pigeon holing myself into the world of eco or environmental artist. Even though much of my work does explore these themes, it primarily is encouraging audiences to re-think their existing environment or landscape. This is true of historical work and definitely true of current and proposed projects. A number of which don’t fit neatly in the environmental pigeon hole. Some of these include:

• The “48 Hours of Sao Paolo” project, which seeks to black out the advertising in Times Square for 48 hours in an effort to see what else is there.
• A project I am hosting with the MoMA teen nights, which will introduce the students to visionary architecture and art projects (including Dickson Despommier’s Vertical Farms, The Lilypad Cities, Steve Lambert’s “Wish you Were Here, Postcards from Our Awesome Future,” and the Ansan City proposals), and ask the students to re-envision their “Dream NYC.” This is part of the digital project I would like to do in which I recreate the entire island of Manhattan (or a large portion thereof) as MyNyc, my own dream version of NYC – complete with monorails!
• Paths of Desire, which will trace movements of project participants as they explore historic Lower Manhattan within the confines of contemporary Lower Manhattan. (Proposal images coming soon).
• The project I am doing with the colloquium students. I am asking them to map a non-obvious route and document it in someway (graphics, photos, stories). This idea is on both Paths of Desire and HighWaterLine (which traced a topographic line). I am also planning to do my own set of invisible maps and post them online to share with the students.

Two Bikes, originally uploaded by holly_northrop.

So… I just think he really has a point about my work. I certainly hope that the projects will continue to inspire critical and creative thinking around environmental & ecological issues, while at the same time connecting people to their landscapes.

I guess a new statement is in the works… Any thoughts?

*I like the word landscape because it includes not only visible features but also the weather, climate and human features & the flora and fauna.

I basically spent today talking. Which makes me wonder why I would want to continue to do so, although this is in the written form. I wanted to continue because I am pretty excited about what I was doing today and wanted to note some things down before I forget about them…

First, I spent the morning doing a talk on how to take your project to fruition when working in the public realm. It was part of the NYFA Fall Business of Art Conference called Taking it to the Streets: A Guide to Making Art in the Public, my talk was called DIY How I Made My Public Project Happen. Basically I walked people through a whole slew of things to think about when creating a public art project (especially if you don’t have a producer or presenting organization. Here is the short version of the slideshow…

Most of the topics I will go into more detail on the blog: http://www.diypublicart.org. I will also post the full version with narration on that site…

So what got me buzzed about that – well, I have to admit that I LOVE public speaking. I really do! I just get a buzz from it. I love talking about my work, or leading a discussion or whatever. I just really enjoy it. Someone asked me at the talk if I was an energetic public speaker prior to my project, and I don’t think I really had a chance to find out. But I certainly enjoy it now. So, if you want someone to come talk, lead a workshop whatever – let me know.

Image via Wikipedia

This afternoon I had the pleasure of sitting on a panel at the Pratt Institute ReIgnite Conference. The panel was on greening your practice and featured, Samuel Cochran, Ruth Shuman, Mark Smith & Myself. Each of the panelists brought really interesting work to the fore.

Sam (SMIT) has created beautiful modular solar & wind energy generating systems called “grow” and “ivy” his work was featured in the MoMA “Design & the Elastic Mind” show his project is an elegant solution and has great potential to transform the ways in which renewable energy is used in building design.

Ruth founded the program Publicolor which transforms drab public schools, community centers and even police precincts through the power of colorful painted spaces. She spoke about the fabulous power of color to transform our mindset within these spaces. The brightly colored schools actually had a measurable change in dropout & college-bound rates. It’s a beautifully simple and incredibly powerful project idea.

Mark is an industrial designer who took his expertise quite a lot further – he realised that design has the power to change lives. And not just through the design itself, but that the entire process of creating a new product had the power to impact. He relocated back to Alabama where he grew up and started DesignSeed (website on way). This enterprise incubator launches a new manufacturing company in a different region of the blackbelt (an extremely poor post-agriculture region of Alabama) every two years. DesignSeed identifies resources in a region (materials & people) and does in depth research on a community to determine what needs there are. The design phase involves coming up with a design that fits all of the requirements set forth in the research. There is a lot more to it, but that is some of the gist of it.

Someone in the audience asked the panel, given our community & environmental focus, if we had a chance to go back and change our education at Pratt, what would we do differently.

My response was that I wish there had been more involvement with communities in general and in the local neighborhood in particular. I would like to have studied working on art within a community.

And then I thought, well if I want that, maybe I should be the one to teach that.

And then I thought, wouldn’t it be great to teach art using Mark’s business model. A class would select a neighborhood, go and do research on issues which they deal with – social, environmental or other – research on their knowledge and interest and ideas for confronting these issues. Then the class would charette and come up with designs for art projects to occur in the community and then go through the process of developing & producing that project (permits, community board meetings, all of that stuff) and then create the project. It would be a semester or year long project commitment and would really get people involved in the process and the community. I think it would be a pretty amazing class.

So if you want to hire me to teach that class, I am open to that to.

Jane Marsching:

Platform2: Failure Support Group

Arctic Listening Post

Kite flown at Blue Hill Residency

for more information: http://www.janemarsching.com/

All photos courtesy of Jane Marsching.

Brian D. Collier

Nellifrag Machapplielectro redecylisharpeotherlik

Onlifrag Housedeco grenirresquisanilik

From The Collier Classification System for Very Small Objects

Barrier Fence Adornment

From The Highway Expedition Project.

All photos courtesy Brian D. Collier.

Yesterday I posted about some bigger discussions to have when engaging in the discourse on funding for the arts. I spoke about communities and artist support & integration. Today, as promised I want to talk about the power of the arts community and the myth of scarcity.

The myth of scarcity in the arts is the long held belief that there’s not enough X to go around. Where X represents one patrons, audience, venues, whatever. This myth creates a sometimes vicious competitive environment.

The myth is detrimental to both individual artists and the community.

The good news is that it really is BS. But that does mean coming to terms with some understanding and reality checks. The first concept to grasp is that the current system of the arts industry is broken, the pyramid is inverted. Artists, who should be at the top of the pyramid (all other services should be in support of artist) are currently at the bottom (playing the support role to all the services). This is not a complaint, just a statement of (important word choice coming up) current fact. In order to change this, artists will need to begin with reconsidering how to succeed in the art world (more on that later).

Another reality check is that there is only a minuscule number (I’ve heard rumours that it is 1% of 1% of all artists) make a large amount of money off their artwork. And by large amount of money, I mean rockstar lifestyle. We could probably figure out who they are right now, ummm, Damien Hirst, Olafur Elliasson, maybe Jeff Koons and tangentially Christo & Jean Claude (tan. because they make money off sketches of their work). Am I missing anyone?

Here’s the secret, everyone else is making money off alternative sources of income which are funding their work (teaching, speaking, working in the arts, etc). Now, there are probably quite a lot of artists who make a reasonable amount of money off their work (as opposed to the rockstar levels of money), mostly these are artists who can create easy to market & sell work, which, often is not even the work they would consider the most important or interesting. Like the e-bay and painting-a-day people (there’s a lot of merit in these methods of funding). If you are doing large scale public projects (say a chalk line around NYC) then your funding might come in a small part from grants and individuals, but in a larger part from speaking opportunities, image rights and some amount of commodification. My painter friend is pursuing painting portraits as a means to fund his work, a couple of my other friends who create non-object based work subsist on teaching and occasional fellowships. It’s a good idea to understand that you will be the biggest funder of your own work, so you should find something you can do to make money that will make you happy.

So, about how this community concept can help. It’s quite simple actually, so simple in fact that there is a cliche already made for it: a rising tide lifts all boats.

If as a community we decide that we are going to help one another, whether that is sharing knowledge, resources, experience whatever, then we all rise up together. Don’t even think it isn’t selfish, don’t you think that if I help my friend the painter get a show in a gallery or out at Coney Island, well one day he will turn around and help me when I need it. Sharing is a way of creating greater strength in numbers. (What you give is what you get).

Yes we should all be talking about money too. It empowers us all to know what people are paying for services and products so that we can price our own products and services accordingly. (For example, in my experience speaker fees can range anywhere from $200 [for local panel] to $1000 [for individual presentation outside NYC], and stipends for showing work that is documentary in nature [documentation of a project already completed] is about $300). It also helps us all present a more united front, sure there are lots of artists doing things for free (even I admit to that for a select situation), but the more we all ask for the money we rightly deserve, the more likely people will pay for it. The power of a positive no is a great thing.

So think about it, and figure out what you have to share with your fellow artists, and go out there and give that away (while simultaneously asking to be paid for your creativity).

Photos all creative commons license, courtesy of flickr and: (top to bottom)
“Support Starving Artists” by dltq
“Inverted Pyramide” by megafon (ironic that it is at the louvre no?)
“community kitchen” by smallestbones

I was invited recently to participate on a panel regarding fundraising in the arts. I was told by the organizer that I was being invited for my experience in fundraising for the HighWaterLine project. I told them, you know I only raised about 30% of the cost of the project and funded the rest of it independent filmmaker style (credit cards) and am still working on ways to recoup, so I’m not sure I am the best representative. They said, actually that’s the other reason we have invited you, we want someone who is honest about their fundraising achievements and challenges.

I’m pretty excited about the panel, since, as you may have noticed, I am really interested in talking about new funding models.
I think there are a couple of important parts of the conversation around fundraising which need to be addressed, I will look at value/integration and support of artistic communities today…

First, how we talk about value of the arts in a community. The argument on the monetary value of the arts, while valuable and of great merit is overused and doesn’t fully address all of the facets of a strong arts economy. I just read a good article in the New York Times Magazine about arts in education, it profiles a report which debunks the power of the arts in strengthening skills in the “tested” subject areas. (I’ve had a problem with this argument for a while). Instead it notes that what was witnessed was: “persistence in tackling problems, observational acuity, expressive clarity, reflective capacity to question and judge, ability to envision alternative possibilities and openness to exploration.” (Nowhere has this been made more visible to me than the week I spent at ACPA, where high school students undertook a week long art project with me where they solved problems, collaborated, focused and expressed).Similarly it is important to find ways to talk about the broader impact that the arts has on our community psyche and collective consciousness. What does it mean culturally and socially to be a creative community?

And what does all this have to do with arts funding? It’s re-framing the argument and looking deeper at the value of the arts and encouraging broader support, which gets us back to the other facets of a healthy funding environment for the arts. While city, state, and federal support of the arts combined with private support giving money or resources to both organizations and individuals provides fertile ground, an active patronage also needs to exist to help create a sustainable environment (somebody has to buy the work/tickets/etc).

The final (and possibly most complicated) pieces are both government regulation in support of arts (low rent/tax breaks for venues and orgs, housing subsidy for artists, open permitting and city agency support) and integration of arts and artists into private sector economy.
The integration could occur in a variety of ways – one idea I like is to hire artists within the corporate community to inspire creative thinking. I guarantee that if you put me on your board of directors that I would be able to see things from a different point of view and come up with creative solutions. Within the private sector artists have the ability to inspire the creativity necessary to advance companies. I would also advocate for institutions to host, essentially, artist residencies. I could provide a number of inspiring community based projects to help with any variety of Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club or NRDC initiatives.

Tomorrow I will write about creating a supportive artistic community, as an artist, and how we can help each other overcome the scarcity myth.

Images courtesy of Creative Commons on Flickr (from top to bottom):
“Fund Public Art” by bourgeoisbee
“Funds Please” by otherthings
“Creative Hands – Mindy” by Dalydose
“fuck it i’ll fund that.” by yatta