Category: Environmental Art
Rain Yard through the years
December 7, 2017By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art and Liz Jelsomine, Exhibitions Coordinator
Editor’s note: The Schuylkill Center produced a wall calendar for 2017 in celebration of the environmental art program. Throughout the year, we’ll run a monthly post on our blog highlighting the art works featured in that month of the calendar.
Rain Yard is an interactive artwork by Stacy Levy that has been on display in the Schuylkill Center’s Sensory Garden since October 2013. Rain Yard provides a function of mitigating stormwater runoff from our building, while highlighting the critical role soil and plants play in the water cycle.…
Elemental powers
November 2, 2017By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art and Liz Jelsomine, Exhibitions Coordinator
Editor’s note: The Schuylkill Center produced a wall calendar for 2017 in celebration of the environmental art program. Throughout the year, we’ll run a monthly post on our blog highlighting the art works featured in that month of the calendar.
“I imagine a line in space. I build it straight and true and offer it to the wind.
The wind plays with it like a cat with a length of yarn. The wind is the artist.”
Yellow Zinger, Tim Prentice
Tim Prentice’s Yellow Zinger was part of an…
LandLab: Introducing our artists in residence
October 12, 2017By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art
Even though I haven’t myself had a first day of school for a few years, in the fall, I still get a back-to-school-esque twinge of anticipation. In this season, you can feel something new coming in the air - something to be learned, something to gear up for - and I find it to be the most exciting time of year. This year, one of the most exciting new things for the environmental art program is the beginning of the second offering of our LandLab residency at the Schuylkill Center.
LandLab is a…
A playground for artists, Part II
October 5, 2017By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art
Editor’s note: The Schuylkill Center produced a wall calendar for 2017 in celebration of the environmental art program. Throughout the year, we’ll run a monthly post on our blog highlighting the art works featured in that month of the calendar.
The Schuylkill Center asked six artists from the former co-op Nexus to respond to the history and physical space of Brolo Hill Farm site at the Schuylkill Center for the show Ground Play from September 19th - November 28th, 2010. Read our August post for a profile on the other three artists from…
Playing with place: Looking back on Sau Pines
September 14, 2017
by Aaron Asis, Making in Place artist
Back in May, Sau Pines was created to celebrate the spirit of the Pine Grove — as part of the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education’s Making in Place exhibition — which featured the work of 14 different Art in the Open artists.
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The installation itself consisted of a series of visual tree wraps to highlight some of the unique environmental characteristics of the Pine Grove. A series of matching colored timbers were also distributed throughout the Pine Grove to activate visitor interaction within the context of the broader…
Shadows in the Forest
September 7, 2017By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art
Editor’s note: The Schuylkill Center produced a wall calendar for 2017 in celebration of the environmental art program. Throughout the year, we’ll run a monthly post on our blog highlighting the art works featured in that month of the calendar.
Marisha Simons attempted to catalog human impact upon the environment in her installation, Ghost Forest. Ghost Forest was part of the show Ghosts and Shadows from September 6th, 2008 - January 2nd, 2009 presented in partnership with the Center for Emerging Visual Artists and guest curated by Warren Angle.
Simons was one of the…
Plants and People Connect through Art
August 30, 2017[caption id="attachment_268857" align="alignleft" width="824"] Photo courtesy of Vaughn Bell[/caption]
By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art
Most people know that we rely on plants for the food we eat and the air we breathe, but the interconnections between plants and people actually go much deeper and are more nuanced. Scientists continue to discover the complexities of how plants take in and respond to information, even communicating with each other through underground networks and chemical signals. Human systems powerfully influence plant communities, locations, and health - and they also exert a powerful influence over us.
Yet, despite the intricacies of…
A playground for artists, Part I
August 3, 2017
By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art
Editor’s note: The Schuylkill Center produced a wall calendar for 2017 in celebration of the environmental art program. Throughout the year, we’ll run a monthly post on our blog highlighting the art works featured in that month of the calendar.
Part of the Schuylkill Center’s mission is to use our forests and fields as a living laboratory; for the art program, that means that we provide opportunities for artists to use our site as an place for experimentation in their artistic practice - which can some times look and feel a lot like…
(Un)Natural Perspectives
July 6, 2017By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art
Editor’s note: The Schuylkill Center produced a wall calendar for 2017 in celebration of the environmental art program. Throughout the year, we’ll run a monthly post on our blog highlighting the art works featured in that month of the calendar.
Works were exported from the studio and given a new life outside for Out of Bounds, a show presented in collaboration with The Center for Emerging Visual Artists in 2012. From June to September that year, work was placed against the backdrop in which it was inspired by - the natural world. Some…
Artist Profile: Jane Carver
July 3, 2017
By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art
Imagine the quiet of a grove of tall pine trees, the impressions of your footsteps barely audible on a cushion of pine needles, punctuated by the occasional bird or creaking limb. Now, imagine the soundscape also includes an ethereal voice accompanied by the haunting notes of an accordion. You’ll have the opportunity to experience precisely these sounds this summer, as artist Jane Carver performs a special one night only concert in our Pine Grove.
Carver is a Philadelphia-based artist and musician who is part of our summer exhibition, Making in Place. She started…
