Is it mess or is it Eco Art? A rediscovery of the eco-artist within!
If you will allow me ... I'm going to take you on a journey ...
If you have no desire to go time travelling or to read about other peoples boring lives, then you had better jump ship now coz the screen is about to go all wavy and the tinkling music is beginning! Quick you've still got time! ... Ok, I warned ya ... now you are here for the ride ... enjoy ....
Cue wavyness and tinkles ....
It's 1988. I'm eight years old. My hair falls in a long blond plait right to my butt and I love being outside, climbing trees and scurrying around in the dirt. The summer holiday has just started and so I'm off school and I'm running around like a feral animal on the farm where I am growing up.
At some point during this wonderfully hot and long summer I find a broad stretch of concrete that is totally clear and free from any kind of decoration and, being a creative little thing, I decide that this just wont do ... I will make my pièce de résistance there.
I collect grass and sticks, rocks, stones and pebbles of all sizes and shapes ... I take straw from the hay bales and I may have even used some cow crap to get a really nice dark green hue ... (don't judge me ok, I was a little kid). The whole afternoon is spent in a creative haze and I slip out of time and place only seeing the emergence of a masterpiece of poetic proportions.
Hours later, I stand back and view my work of art .... it is huge! Roughly the size of a small room ... there is a wonderful green face made from natural materials smiling up at me ... there are shadows in all the right places (from darker leaves, of course ... or it may have been the cowcrap ... no way to know really) and the eyes are kindly with slate pupils that seem to look right into the soul ... I am so proud of myself! I have turned a boring old piece of concrete into a beautiful mural .... COOL! I dust myself off, find a semi-clean puddle to wash my hands in (again, I lived on a farm and was slightly feral ... please keep the judgements to a minimum, folks) and go off home for some well deserved dinner ....
Half way through a delicious supper, Dad comes bounding into the room asking in a slightly annoyed voice if any of us knows anything about a massive mess over by the cow sheds ...
'Well', I think, 'I wonder who made a mess over there ... I hope they haven't messed up my artwork' .... I shake my head.
'are you sure?' he demands in a somewhat angrier tone now ...
'No, Daddy!' I say. I made art ... I haven't made a mess!
Grabbing me and thrusting me outside, he takes me to the **whispers** crime scene ... I see with mounting horror that my artwork has been misunderstood ... they don't seem to be able to see the face or the time and effort that went into creating it ... everybody is angry with me ... I don't understand .... I'm afraid of being punished ... I lie ... I tell the truth ... I get a slap ... I'm confused and hurt ...
It turns out that this wonderfully broad stretch of concrete was the front of the ladies bathrooms for the farm campsite and that the campers didn't really enjoy stepping into muddy, grassy cow shit to go and have a shower .... well, I mean, who do they think they are? The queen?! ;-)
I remembered this little episode of my life yesterday after deciding that I have no desire to be an artist that pollutes the environment. Reading about Eco Art triggered this memory but I had forgotten it due to the misunderstanding that surrounded it ...
Sometimes the things that we do as children are actually hints for what we should be doing as adults ...I have always been an eco-artist ... I clearly remember the feeling of the grass between my fingers, the smell of the twigs as they snapped, the colour of the leaves and feeling of oneness as I worked with these materials.
This is what I need to be doing more of through my artwork. ... I have rediscovered the childlike eco-artist within me and from this new decision endless opportunities are being uncovered. (In fact, as soon as I had made this decision, two ... (yup ... TWO!) things in one day came bouncing across my path like little puffs of joy, ready to be inhaled into my life. That I believe, is when you know you are on the right track! Serendipity baby!
As humans we need to take notice of the things that are created around us ... nature has always been the first artist but like many creative souls, has been misunderstood, punished and taken for granted.
It's a tenuous link between my life story and the end sentence but I wanted to tell it ... that is all ...
I invite you to just stop for a moment to smell the grass or see the trees as they bud ... try to see the creation that is going on all around us, everyday and don't be too hard on your kids for making a so called 'mess' ... maybe they are just creating eco-art!
