Tag: art

Wanted: Affordable Art Space

  • Back in 2000, Laura Weathered and fellow artists were drafting what their artist community would look like. (Photo by Lester Graham)

When artists make a check-list for the ideal place to live – they add things the average family
might not, like plenty of work space and being close to other artists and galleries. Big cities
usually offer all the things on that list – but there’s a problem. Big-city real estate prices have a
habit of rising quickly – and pricing artists out. Shawn Allee found artists who’ve tried to stay
put:

Transcript

When artists make a check-list for the ideal place to live – they add things the average family
might not, like plenty of work space and being close to other artists and galleries. Big cities
usually offer all the things on that list – but there’s a problem. Big-city real estate prices have a
habit of rising quickly – and pricing artists out. Shawn Allee found artists who’ve tried to stay
put:

Laura Weathered began her career in painting in Los Angeles.

It was tough enough finding her muse – but it was also tough finding places to live that stayed
affordable.

“This kind of history of settling into a space and then the neighborhood going through
gentrification was chasing me all over L.A.”

Fed up, Weathered left for Chicago.

Before long, she found some Chicago artists had the same problem – rents and home prices just
weren’t stable.

Weathered and fellow artists got tired of toughing it – so about thirty of them put their heads
together and looked into buying property – to live in, to work – and maybe share with artist
groups, too.

“And someone’s comment was, You know, this is going to cost more than a million
dollars – who’s going to rent a bunch of flaky artists a million dollars?”

But then they did some back-of the napkin kinda math.

“We had a everyone go around the room and, What are you paying for rent? And that
was the Aha moment – collectively we could afford much more than a million dollars,
because that’s what we’d been paying all along.”

It took almost ten years to dig up funding and expertise, but eventually – they transformed a
former metal-stamping factory into artist housing, studio and office space.

People have been living in the artists’ community for five years now.

When you walk around, you see paintings in some loft windows and sculptures near the front
step.

Weathered shows off some shared gallery space.

“So, this is really important. You can bring test audiences in and see how it plays and get
feedback and the like without taking huge risks.”

All this is great – but the big idea was to make the space stay affordable for artists and artist
groups. So far, it’s worked.

“We can stay here a long time.”

This is Denise Zaccardi.

Zaccardi runs the Community TV Network. It has offices at the Bloomingdale Arts Building.

The network teaches low-income teens how to produce news, TV and documentaries. Zaccardi
says arts organizations like hers can benefit from this stability.

“Kids can tell their brothers and sisters down the line we’re here – we’re not moving
every three years, which is a common thing for people who rent, especially for artists.”

So, sounds like everything is an artist’ dream, right?

Well, like in other condo-associations, members have fought over repair costs. And artists who
own their units can only sell them to other artists. Plus, if they do sell … their profits are
capped. That’s made the units much lower in value compared to their neighbors’.

Laura Weathered says there’ve been second thoughts.

“I think some people are saying, ‘Did I agree to this too quickly?’ because it’s restrictive,
but the agreement originally was that we wanted an artist community and not just for one
generation for the future.”

Weathered says the idea was to keep units affordable for artists – and that’s been the case for
five years.

She says it’s not perfect, but if it works for a decade or two more, it might be a model for other
artists to follow.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Nature on a Concrete Canvas

  • Artist Christopher Griffin, the owner of the house, uses a long smooth bone to draw a picture after each swipe of the trowel (Photo by Karen Kelly)

Sometimes cities can seem like drab, impersonal places. But every once in a
while, you see a building that stops you in your tracks. Karen Kelly tells a story about a house designed to do just that:

Transcript

Sometimes cities can seem like drab, impersonal places. But, every once in a
while, you see a building that stops you in your tracks. Karen Kelly tells a story
about a house designed to do just that:


(sound of construction and trucks)

When you first see it, you’re just not sure.

A two-story house is being covered with marks etched in concrete.

Is it intentional? Or just a layer of construction?

Then you see a large black figure on the west side of the house and realize- oh, it’s
a whale. Waves are etched in the concrete around it. Walk around the corner and
you see flocks of birds flying over roughly drawn buildings.

(sound of scraping)

And just past the birds, there are three men working silently on a platform. Two
are spreading layers of fresh concrete.

The third is artist Christopher Griffin, the owner of the house. He uses a long
smooth bone to draw a picture after each swipe of the trowel – and before the
concrete sets.

He says he has to work fast.

“They would scrape the mud on and I would be going around them, over top of
them, actually right behind their trowel and there’s no chance to stand back; there’s
no chance to second guess.”

Griffin has been a professional artist in Ottawa, Canada for almost twenty years.

Griffin’s motivation was simple: his house really needed a new exterior. But the
regular stuff that people put on their houses didn’t feel right to him.

Instead, he thought he’d try some drawings like he’d seen in a photo of mud huts in
Africa.

“It was irregular; it was organic; it wasn’t pristine; it wasn’t crisp; it wasn’t
heartless. And that sort of quality was something I was after.”

(sound of chatting and scraping)

But while Griffin had this vision of giant sunflowers and caribou, contractors had
no idea what he was talking about.

Several told him it couldn’t be done.

Dan Charette is part of a team that was willing to give it a try.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity to bring our craftsmanship to a different level. There’s
a whole other creative level to what we do here with constructive behaviors, so it’s
really a lot of fun.”

For instance, the contractors suggested adding fly ash to the cement. It’s a
byproduct of burning coal and it also makes the cement more elastic.

Griffin liked that it was more environmentally friendly.

He also recycled building materials and added solar panels. But usually that’s not
what people see.

He says what really makes him feel good is when people just stop and stare.

“Absolute strangers stopping their cars, getting out and having a look. There’s a
teenage skateboarder who stopped and said, ‘Wow, awesome house.’”

Griffin says, in that way, his house has become a public space.

In fact, he argues everyone’s house is a public space.

And he suggests people think about what they want their house to say to someone
walking by.

For The Environment Report, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Downtowns Make Room for Artists

  • James Abajian is an artist who lives in Elgin, Illinois. His entire apartment is stuffed with tools, paint, and works like this one. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

The stereotype of the
starving artist isn’t always true,
but, let’s face it, some artists
have a tough time finding affordable
places to both live and work. Shawn
Allee reports how one city’s
trying to solve this problem while
revitalizing its downtown:

Transcript

The stereotype of the
starving artist isn’t always true,
but, let’s face it, some artists
have a tough time finding affordable
places to both live and work. Shawn
Allee reports how one city’s
trying to solve this problem while
revitalizing its downtown:

The City of Elgin Illinois has a housing crisis – not so much for average residents, but for
some artists.

It’s not that they’re homeless, it’s just, well, to understand. It helps to meet an Elgin
artist.

“Come on in.”

“Are you James?”

“Yeah.”

This is James Abajian.

“Don’t really mind the house, I’ve been working on a couple of projects.”

When I get in, I’m dumbstruck.

Wood sculptures cover Abajian’s floor, and his dining room has stacks of paper and
canvas, and right where most apartments would have a TV, Abajian’s got an unfinished
drawing.

“It’s like a wine glass or a martini glass, and it’s on different angles.”

“Is it a charcoal drawing?”

“Yeah, it’s charcoal.”

Abajian started art eight years ago.

He says he’d like to make a living with it and rent a fancy studio, but he’s just not there
yet.

So, he lives where he works.

“My apartment is nothing but paintings and frames.”

“I think the major space that doesn’t have charcoal or something on it is your
couch.”

“Couch. That’s about it. Yeah.”

It can take a while for artists like Abajian to hone their craft, so, they make do with space
not meant for working.

It’s enough for the city of Elgin to step in and try to help at least some artists find better
quarters. Oh, and, by the way, the city thinks the solution might solve a problem it has,
too.

Ed Schock is Elgin’s mayor.

I find him downtown, outside a two-story brick building.

“So, where are we, Mayor?”

“We are looking at the Elgin Community College downtown campus building.”

Schock is considering whether this building might work as an artist colony – a place
where Elgin artists could afford to live and work.

“There are an unusual number of artists here who would like to continue to do their
art, but economic reality’s set in, one of the biggest one’s is housing. Plus, just
having 45-50 residents downtown is a big plus. One of our strategic goals is to
increase the number who reside in the downtown.”

Inside, Schock and I meet staffers from a non-profit group that’s helping Elgin develop
artist housing.

(sound of walking up stairs)

They’re with ArtSpace of Minnesota.

ArtSpace wants to see the building first-hand – they need to make sure it’s the best fit for
Elgin and the artists.

Wendy Holmes says lots of cities want artists to make older parts of town more attractive.

Holmes says it works for cities – but it doesn’t always work for artists in the long run.

“Artists have traditionally been displaced from their spaces because artists make
areas interesting and hip and desirable to move into and other people tend to move
in behind them. And those people can afford to pay higher rent therefore the artists
are usually forced out because their rents will be too high for the artists themselves
to afford.”

ArtSpace does something about that – it uses federal low-income housing credits, so rents
stay affordable, and struggling artists stick around.

Another staffer, Heidi Kurtze asks about public transit, grocery stores, and how much
light these windows get.

“You need natural light into your living space, but for artists in particular, natural
light is a critical piece for them to do the work they do.”

Kurtz takes this as seriously as a family buying a house – after all, this could be some
artists’ home for decades.

It could take two years for ArtSpace to finish its Elgin project.

Artists like James Abajain will have to make due until then.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Getting Crafty for the Holidays

  • Student Kate Doyle makes a sweatshirt as a holiday gift (Photo by Jennifer Guerra)

The economy is on the fritz,
unemployment is way up – so this holiday
season: cheap is the new black. And who
better to give tips on how to stretch
a dollar than students. Some crafty
college kids share their more unique
ideas for homemade gifts:

Transcript

The economy is on the fritz,
unemployment is way up – so this holiday
season: cheap is the new black. And who
better to give tips on how to stretch
a dollar than students. Some crafty
college kids share their more unique
ideas for homemade gifts:

“Hi, I’m Dani Davis.”

“Meghann Rotary.”

“I’m Kate Doyle and I’m crafting currently as we speak. I’m cutting up some old
sweatshirts and I’m creating them into Christmas gifts. The bottoms and the sleeves of
old sweatshirts you get this really nice stretchy material and you can make a woven detail
to put on the front of a new sweatshirt and give it to somebody. Ideally, you’re using the
person who’s receiving the gifts their favorite colors. And what not. This is actually a test
drive to make sure it looks good because I saw this pattern in the stores actually but it
was like $135 dollars. So these two sweatshirts were given to me. But if I were to buy
these at Salvation Army or something, I would say the project would cost 5-8 dollars.”

“For Christmas this year I think my big crafty endeavor for my boyfriend. My friend lent
me a taxidermy ram head which is currently on my wall in my bedroom. And my
boyfriend thought it was really cool and even at the Salvation Army they’re like $150 or
something and they’re missing chunks of hair. So I was like, oh, out of fluff and fabric,
probably like old curtains or something, I could make him a taxidermy in quotations deer
head. You guys can’t tell him!”

“A few years ago I decided – well, I was broke first of all, so I didn’t know what I was
going to do for a gift. So I decided I was going to make marshmallows and package them
really nicely.”

“Basically it’s just gelatin, corn syrup, confectioners’ sugar, granulated sugar – lot of
sugar – and water. And they only take about 20 minutes to make. So I’ll buy a bunch of
dark chocolate and white chocolate and melt that down and then dip the marshmallows in
that and then dip the chocolate in nuts and peppermint. And then put them in little boxes
and sometimes I’ll cover the boxes in nice papers or wrapping paper. So it’s pretty cheap.
Yeah. And if you’ve never had a homemade marshmallow you’re missing out.”

“I’d like to get some of your marshmallows this Christmas.”

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A Stamp of Approval

  • The 2008 Nature of America issuance, Great Lakes Dunes, is the tenth stamp pane in an educational series that features the beauty and complexity of major plant and animal communities in the United States. A description of the dunes and a numbered key to the artwork appear on the back of the stamp pane, along with a corresponding list of common and scientific names for 27 selected species. (Photo courtesy of the USPS)

The Great Lakes are getting a stamp of
approval from the Postal Service. Heidi Chang
reports there’s a new sheet of postal stamps
that celebrate the region:

Transcript

The Great Lakes are getting a stamp of
approval from the Postal Service. Heidi Chang
reports there’s a new sheet of postal stamps
that celebrate the region:

The new sheet of stamps is the latest in the Postal Service’s “Nature
in America” series.

John Dawson created the painting depicted on the sheet of stamps. It
features 27 different kinds of plants and animals found in the Great
Lakes Dunes.

Dawson says he hopes the stamps will make people more aware of the
beauty of the dunes, and the need to save the whole environment.

“The animals, the plants, the flowers, the bugs, it’s all inter-related.
That’s what’s important about showing this stuff – that it’s important to
keep the environment intact, because there’s so many things that
depend on each other.”

Dawson has designed all ten of the Nature of America series. But this
one is special to him because he started his career living in the Great
Lakes region.

For The Environment Report, this is Heidi Chang.

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Nature’s Little Architects

  • The nest of a Swainsons warbler. (Photo by Judith McMillan)

Some of the world’s most intricate
architecture is not always constructed by
humans. Sometimes the most skilled architectural
wonders are designed by nature. Gretchen Cuda reports on an exhibit that celebrates
birds’ nests:

Transcript

Some of the world’s most intricate
architecture is not always constructed by
humans. Sometimes the most skilled architectural
wonders are designed by nature. Gretchen Cuda reports on an exhibit that celebrates
birds’ nests:

Judith McMillan didn’t find her inspiration in tree branches. She found it in the
basement of the museum where she works. She was rummaging through drawers
there when she came across a hundred-year-old collection of bird nests.

“This Museum must have 10 cabinets full of bird’s nests.”

She was fascinated and immediately knew she had a new subject for her art.

McMillan is a photographer who has been volunteering at the Cleveland Museum of
Natural history for 20 years. In her latest exhibit, titled “Nesting”, she captures some
of natures most inspiring, and often overlooked architecture – the nests of birds.

(sound of exhibit crowd)

“I was looking for nests that were different from each other so that you could see that
these birds were little architects. And there were so many different kinds of materials
used – and then the eggs could be so different. Some with little tiny speckles, some
with different colors some with little calligraphic streaks around them, so it was that
variety that I wanted to capture.”

All the photographs are in black and white – because she really wanted people to
concentrate on the architecture without being seduced by the color. She’s fascinated
by the way different birds chose very specific materials to work with – everything
from marsh reeds, grape vine, or little knotty twigs – like this one.

“This is a vermillion flycatcher – it’s almost like it’s made of pick up sticks in the way
their pushed together.”

And to emphasize the diversity of structures birds can create she shows me an
Orioles nest that’s five inches deep and formerly hung like a basket from a tree.

“I actually had to shine a flashlight down in it when I was taking the photograph in
order to get the eggs to show up.”

Most of the nests and eggs were collected around the turn of the 20th century by
amateur naturalists who never thought twice about disturbing the natural wildlife.

But the practice eventually fell out of fashion as people became more
environmentally conscious and large nest and egg collections were often turned over
to museums – explains Andy Jones the museum’s ornithologist.

“People whose grandfathers were dealing with eggs as a hobby, well their
grandfathers are passing away and so they contact their local university or natural
history museum, and say, ‘hey do you want these?’”

Those specimens were originally collected just because they were pretty. These
days, they’re still beautiful, but they also serve a scientific purpose. Scientists can
look at things such as the thickness of the shells, or the type and number of birds
found in a specific location and tell a lot about the birds. They can see where birds
used to live and how far their territories reached. They can even tell if a bird that’s
extinct now once lived in an area.

Judith McMillan hopes her photographs will not only show how beautiful the birds’
handiwork was, but will also inspire people to do something about saving the birds
that are still here.

“I didn’t understand until I started using a camera myself how you can isolate
something and make people look at it differently–And I hope through my
photographs I’m getting people to take a fresh look at things. It’s hard to have an
appreciation of nature unless you really look at it and start to really care about it.”

Recent surveys have found that many songbirds are disappearing. If people don’t
start caring, those photographs and drawers full of nests might become the only
reminders of many more species that go extinct.

(song of a Cardinal)

For The Environment Report, I’m Gretchen Cuda.

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Old Stuff Gets New Life

  • Tennis ball art made of 160 balls. Some of the balls can be moved around in order to create different formations. (Photo courtesy of Britten Stringwell)

Everyone has stuff. Probably too much stuff. Stuff you don’t use anymore, stuff that’s just
gathering dust in a box somewhere. Sure, you could recycle it. Or, as reporter Jennifer
Guerra discovered, you could turn some of that stuff into art:

Transcript

Everyone has stuff. Probably too much stuff. Stuff you don’t use anymore, stuff that’s just
gathering dust in a box somewhere. Sure, you could recycle it. Or, as reporter Jennifer
Guerra discovered, you could turn some of that stuff into art:


Vivienne Armentrout has only the essentials in her house. A table, some chairs, a
sideboard. Maybe a vase with fresh cut flowers from her garden. But that’s it. No clutter,
no knick knacks. Armentrout doesn’t like to have stuff lying around her house. So she
gets rid of it. But she doesn’t just throw it out or recycle it:


“The thing is, it’s easy to recycle. You just load up everything take it down to drop off
center and put it in the appropriate bin. And that’s okay for material recovery. But a lot of
objects have a real use still and that would be a waste. ”


Like fabric, for example. Armentrout says there’s nothing inherently wrong with
recycling old neck ties or curtain remnants. But if you go that route, the material will
probably just end up being turned into stuffing for seat cushions:


“But I think making them into a beautiful piece of art is a much better use.”




Now you might be thinking to yourself, okay, sounds like a cool idea…but I’m not an
artist! That’s ok, you don’t have to be. That’s where someone like Britten Stringwell
comes in. Stringwell calls herself a…


“A creative, inspirational doer…or artist.”


Stringwell and Armentrout live in the same town. But they never met until Armentrout
read an article about Stringwell in a local paper. Stringwell had some art work on display
at a coffee shop, so the paper was doing a little bio on her. When Armentrout read that
Britten Stringwell used recycled materials in her pieces, Armentrout immediately went to
work. She went through boxes of stuff she had in her attic and in her basement. Armentrout
invited Stringwell over to her house and together, the two sifted through old metal gears, antique
furniture knobs and wooden beads.


Some of the items Stringwell took home with her. Some she didn’t. Stringwell’s quick to
point out that she doesn’t just take anything that’s handed to her:


“I don’t like to keep collecting things, but if I can help to inspire other people who
would use them, too, is really important.”


I think that’s key to understanding what drives Stringwell to do what she does. She likes to make connections, she likes to form relationships with people.


People – strangers – will read or hear about Stringwell and they’ll invite her into their
house. Virtual strangers! Sometimes they have her over for tea, maybe a light snack. And
then, they just talk. Mostly, about all the stuff they’ve got in their basement and their attic,
and it’s those stories – the stories BEHIND the items and not the actual items themselves – that
Stringwell says inspires her the most:


“More recently, I guess I’ve been interested in not talking so much when I enter a space,
but kind of seeing where the person leads me. And just kind of finding out what’s
important to them or what story comes up and why does this object inspire me more
or them more…”




For example, that’s how Stringwell discovered someone’s box of old tennis balls. An
older woman invited Stringwell into her home one day. The two walked through her
basement, where there were boxes of stuff everywhere. When they came to the box of
tennis balls, the older woman went on and on about her love of the game, and about how she
and her partner used to play tennis all the time when they were younger.


So, Stringwell took those tennis balls home with her and she gave them new life. She put
them in an art piece. Tennis balls that otherwise would have stayed in a box in a
basement or ended up in a landfill somewhere. Stringwell created an interactive composition of
sorts. So within the composition, the balls can be arranged by the viewer to form different
shapes and patterns:


“What’s important is that it becomes this new, physical game. What was important
to them about it. They might not be as physical as they were when they were
younger and playing tennis, but now they can take these things out and play a
matching game and they will change it around and recreate it.”


Of course not everyone is a creative inspirational doer, like Britten Stringwell. But that doesn’t mean you can’t reduce, reuse and recycle. That part’s easy. Everybody gets that. And maybe, while you’re at it, you’ll start to look at all the stuff around you in a different way. Maybe you’ll find your own way to recreate, repurpose and reimagine.


For the Environment Report, I’m Jennifer Guerra.

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ADS USE NATURE TO SELL SUVs

  • Car companies use our love of the great outdoors to sell some of the most gas-guzzling and polluting vehicles around. (Photo by Erin Norris)

Advertisers like to push your hot buttons. One of them is your
attraction to nature. Car companies use our love of the great outdoors
to sell some of the most gas-guzzling and polluting vehicles around.
Kyle Norris takes a look at how car ads work:

Transcript

Advertisers like to push your hot buttons. One of them is your
attraction to nature. Car companies use our love of the great outdoors
to sell some of the most gas-guzzling and polluting vehicles around.
Kyle Norris takes a look at how car ads work:


Have you ever noticed that car commercials have a lot of nature in
them? The car that’s being sold is always climbing up a boulder or
ripping through the mud. Like this commercial:


(Commerical:) “The new Jeep Liberty Renegade…”


A Native-American looking man drives over some rugged terrain when he comes
across a seal stranded on the ice.


(Commercial:) “It gives you the power to conquer nature…”


As he approached the seal and raised a harpoon over his head, you
thought he was going to hurt the seal.


(Commercial:) “…as well as the ability to protect it.” (chirping and hooting)


Instead, he plunges a hole in the ice and another seal pops out its
head to be reunited with the first. Then the commercial ends with
the sound of chirping crickets and the hoot of an owl.


But listen to that announcer one more time:


(Commercial:) “It gives you the power to conquer nature as well as the
ability to protect it.”


Over the next decade, Generation Y will be elbowing out the Baby
Boomers in the marketplace. So you’ll be seeing fewer commercials about
conquering nature and more about protecting it.


Here’s why that’s happening: according to researchers, Generation Y
cares strongly for the environment and they’re willing put their money
where their mouth is. Whereas Boomers theoretically care they’re a lot less
willing to financially back that concern.


But for everyone, nature speaks to something inside us. And advertisers
know this. Art Spinelli is the president of CNW Research:


“Well, for the most part, most consumers have an enormous response to
natural settings, whether it’s the agrarian part of just human nature
or human beings.”


He calls this response a hot button. Spinelli says advertisers use it
to sell everything from beer to cars.


“…And it plays off of a really instinctive basic attitude that a lot
of consumers have. Kind of like going on vacation to somewhere and
looking around and going, gee, I could really live here. This would be
terrific but the reality is that I have a job and it happens to be in
an urban or suburban environment and I can’t leave that to live in the
desert.”


Car salespeople will also tell you we have this nature hot button. They
say it’s all about knowing you could drive in the rugged
wilderness if you needed to. Here’s a car salesman who goes
simply by the name of Mike:


“They want to be able to know they can do it um, but it doesn’t
happen. They never do it. I think I had an Explorer once myself,
and the most off-roading – it was in the wintertime – and I think
I went on the sidewalk or something. That was the most off-roading I ever did.”


So what are people actually doing with their vehicles? Is it anything
like the commercials? Well, it’s not just about conquering mountain tops:


(Consumer 1:) “I’m driving a Toyota 4-Runner. I need something to tow my boat and I was
looking for a quality car.”


(Consumer 2:) “Part of the reason I brought a little SUV is I like to sit up high and the SUV
can really offer the height.”


(Consumer 3:) “I don’t actually go off-roading with it. I can get away for weekends and
pack a load of gear. I can tow a light trailer. It’s just a good all-around sport utility vehicle.”


(Consumer 4:) “I’ve helped friends move before and all the seats, the entire back folds down and
I can fit a whole full mattress in the back.”


So, turns out most people aren’t mud bogging on a regular basis, but it’s
important to them to have the option to mud bog. And advertisers are
hip to this desire. Car buyers can keep this fantasy alive as long as
they’re willing to fork over some serious cash for the price of the
vehicle and the cost of gas.


Car salesmen say the number one thing buyers ask them about is money, as in
how much will I have to spend. They say potential buyers never
ask them about off-roading or driving through nature, but they know that inkling is there.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

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Artist Carries Tribe’s Traditions Forward


Every artist depicts nature in a different way. In one artist’s world, nature is a place where people, animals and plant life are intertwined in vibrant color. Karen Kelly visited this new exhibit:

Transcript

Every artist depicts nature in a different way. In one artist’s world, nature is a place where people, animals and plant life are intertwined in vibrant color. Reporter Karen Kelly visited this new exhibit.


Six and seven year olds are pointing and chattering in front of a mural bursting with plant and animal life. One of them, Pierre Rousseau, describes his favorite parts of the painting.


“People, strawberries, some leaves, and fish, and kind of mister who has a bird on his head.”


The kids are at an exhibit of Norval Morrisseau’s work at the National Gallery of Art in Ottawa, Canada. Usually, you hear a lot of shushing when kids are in an art gallery.
Here, you can almost feel the energy between the kids and the paintings.


In one corner, Sadok Benmoussa and Amir Shallal are trying to figure out a mural that tells the story of creation.


“And what’s that big stuff? A flower? That big stuff… Oh, the big stuff, bears? A bear? A bear.”


Norval Morrisseau grew up on an Ojibway reservation on the north shore of Lake Superior, and that environment fills his paintings; the water, the animals, trees, berries.
But most important are the people, his own people interacting with that nature.


Gabe Vadas lived with Morrisseau for many years, and now that the artist has Parkinson’s disease, Vadas is his spokesman and guardian. He says when Morrisseau was growing up in the 50’s, his tribe began rejecting many of its traditions, and it’s connection to the natural world, so Morrisseau used his paintings to tell the stories he learned from his grandfather who was a shaman.


“And I think Norval just felt desperation as a young person to regain the identity that had been passed down to him. And of course Grandpa is only telling him, so there’s a desperation that ‘wait a minute, I’m the only one who’s learning these things and learning these legends.'”


One of these legends shows a man who changes into a thunderbird. It’s one of Morrisseau’s most famous works and it shows this transformation over six canvases. It begins with a man who has a bird perched on his head, as well as one in each arm. Slowly, his eyes get larger, his mouth forms a beak and his arms become wings. This is Morrisseau’s later style, and it resembles stained glass. He uses thick black lines to create an intricate design of colors and shapes.


Greg Hill curated the Morrisseau show for Canada’s national gallery. It’s now on display at the McMichael Gallery north of Toronto and it will be in New York City in January. Hill says the artist’s later works contain a message for everyone, not just members of his own community.


“He’s saying that we all exist here on mother earth and we need to respect that, those interrelationships.”


That message is something that visitor Yvette Debain says she could see in Morrisseau’s work.


“Very spiritual. That’s why it touches me because I believe also that we’re all part of a creation, and the spirit, you can say God, is in all the creation. It’s not separate.”


Morrisseau’s guardian, Gabe Vadas, says that when the artist returned to his hometown many years later, he was surprised to find many people who had gone back to the native traditions, and many told him that his paintings had inspired them to do so. Now, he hopes that with this major exhibit, more folks will be touched by his message.


For the Environment Report, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Barnyard Animal Extinctions

  • Milking Devon cattle are rare domestic breeds from an earlier day, some dating back to the 18th century. The animals hold genetic information that some people think is too valuable to lose. (Photo by Lester Graham)

When you think of endangered species, farm animals might not top the list. But some types of farm animals are in danger of going extinct.
Certain breeds of common barnyard creatures are no longer considered commercially viable, and are being allowed to die off. But as the GLRC’s Chris Lehman reports, there’s an effort to preserve some rare varieties of
livestock:

Transcript

When you think of endangered species, farm animals might not top the list. But some
types of farm animals are in danger of going extinct. Certain breeds of common barnyard
creatures are no longer considered commercially viable, and are being allowed to die off.
But as the GLRC’s Chris Lehman reports, there’s an effort to preserve some rare varieties
of livestock:


When you buy a pound of ground beef or a pack of chicken legs, you probably don’t
think about what kind of cow or chicken the meat came from. And in most stores,
you don’t have a choice. Beef is beef and chicken is chicken.


Of course, there’s many different kinds of cows and chickens, but most farmers stick with
just a handful of types. They prefer animals that are specially bred to produce more meat
in less time.


That’s all well and good if your motive is profit.


But some people think the move towards designer farm animals is risky.
Jerome Johnson is executive director of Garfield Farm Museum.


(Sound of turkeys gobbling)


Johnson says breeds like these Narragansett turkeys carry genetic traits that could be
desirable in the future. They don’t require as much food, for instance. That could be an
attractive feature as costs continue to rise:


“Some of the high-producing, high-yielding animals today, they may require a lot of
input. In other words, a lot of feed, more expense since so many things are derived from
petroleum, from the diesel fuel that powers the tractors to the production of fertilizer
and the like, and chemicals for herbicides and all… that as the cost of that goes up, it may
actually be cheaper to raise a different type of animal, that doesn’t require that much.”


Johnson also says some common poultry breeds get sick more easily. That’s part of the
risk farmers take when they choose meatier birds. Normally that might not be a problem,
but if Avian flu spreads to the US, some of the older breeds might carry genes that could
resist the disease. If those breeds disappear, that genetic information would be lost.


But some farmers choose rare livestock breeds for completely different reasons.


(Sound of baby chicks)


Scott Lehr and his family raise several varieties of pure-bred poultry, sheep, and goats on
their northern Illinois farm. These chicks are just a few weeks old…


(Sound of baby chicks)


“These are all pure-bred birds. These are birds that have been around a long time. Some
of the breeds that are in there, there’s Bantam Brown Leghorns, Bantam White Leghorns.”


Some of the poultry breeds are so rare and exotic they’re practically collector’s items.
Lehr’s son enters them in competitions. But the animals on their farm aren’t just for
showing off. Scott says they use the wool from their herd of Border Cheviot sheep for a
craft studio they opened in a nearby town:


“There’s quite a bit of demand growing for handspun wool and the rising interest in the
hand arts, if you will… knitting and spinning and weaving and those kinds of things… are
really beginning to come into, I guess, the consciousness of the American public in many
ways. It’s evolving beyond a cottage industry.”


And the wool of rare breeds like the Border Cheviot sheep is popular among people who want handspun wool.


(Sound of Johnson calling to giant pig, “Hey, buddy, how ya doin’?”)


Back at the Garfield Farm Museum, Jerome Johnson offers a handful of grass to a 700
pound Berkshire hog. This Berkshire is different from the variety of pig with the same
name that’s relatively common today. Johnson says these old-style Berkshires have a
different nose and more white hair than the modern Berkshire. They also tend to be fatter,
which used to be a more desirable trait.


The museum’s pair of old-style Berkshires are literally a dying breed. Johnson says the
boar isn’t fertile anymore:


“They were the last breeding pair that we knew of. These were once quite common but
now are quite rare. And we maybe have found a boar that is fertile that is up in
Wisconsin that was brought in from England here a couple years ago that we could try
crossing with our sow to see if we can preserve some of these genetics.”


(Sound of pigs)


Advocates of rare livestock breeds say the animals can be healthier and sometimes tastier
than the kinds raised on large commercial farms. And although you won’t find many
farm animals on the endangered species list, they could have important benefits for future
farmers.


For the GLRC, I’m Chris Lehman.

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