Only art is capable of dismantling the repressive effects of a senile social system that continues to totter along.
- Joseph Beuys
I could never choose between science and art. Science brings me to truthiness and art allows me to express that truthiness.
As a teacher, organizer and facilitator I work to integrate these disciplines.
- Joseph Beuys
I could never choose between science and art. Science brings me to truthiness and art allows me to express that truthiness.
As a teacher, organizer and facilitator I work to integrate these disciplines.
Is mass extinction an inevitable byproduct of human civilization? Statistical evidence points to a yes. Fortunately conservation biologists have been studying these meta-trends so we can attempt to reverse them. It fills my heart with hope when I see another story unfold of a species brought back from the edge of extinction.
Ecology and traditional ecological knowledge has taught us that large carnivores act as keystone species. Ecosystems can unravel without their presence. Forests and grasslands get overgrazed, thereby slowing their soil-building and carbon sequestering. The human political economy is beginning to recognize this. People are developing innovative programs and methods to allow humans, livestock and predators to co-exist in a mutually beneficial way.
The poster above was created by my students as the final project for a class on Predator Economics.
Ecology and traditional ecological knowledge has taught us that large carnivores act as keystone species. Ecosystems can unravel without their presence. Forests and grasslands get overgrazed, thereby slowing their soil-building and carbon sequestering. The human political economy is beginning to recognize this. People are developing innovative programs and methods to allow humans, livestock and predators to co-exist in a mutually beneficial way.
The poster above was created by my students as the final project for a class on Predator Economics.
Once called the most beautiful serpent, the San Francisco Garter snake is also one of the most endangered. My Regenerative Design student created this SF Giants logo to call attention to their plight.
This natural swimming pool and habitat for aquatic species for the San Francisco Art Institute's meadow was proposed by my student Elsa Henderson.
In the San Francisco Bay area we pump rivers to their breaking point, and then discharge billions of gallons of partially treated wastewater back into the bay every couple of days. Aquatic life all around us suffers for the comforts of modern plumbing. The raingarden renaissance reflects the beginning of a shift in retooling our infrastructure for the age of ecology. The above student design concept by Leonie Holz proposes to harvest half a million gallons of stormwater into our landscape annually.
DIG coop was born from a sense that the new economy was going to be more cooperative than competitive. A developer was impressed with our vision and generously offered us a free lease on a Berkeley commercial space. We in turn opened it up to the community to create a social hub and curated a showcase of some of the most innovative ecological design work being done throughout the bay area. We called it the Green City Gallery.
Lake Merritt is not a lake, it is an estuary. Organizers won a major victory when a bond was passed to restore tidal flow to its shores. Some people complained about the smell of the mudflats. Sabrina Davidson and I, founded Foodwebstories to create intercultural dialogues about land use patterns, human migration, and food culture. Under this umbrella we organized a multimedia storytelling event to highlight some of the fascinating complexity surrounding this very urban ecosystem.
Action learning and socratic inquiry are the hallmarks of my teaching style. I have been teaching semester long classes at Merritt College in Oakland since 2005 and at the San Francisco Art Institute since 2011. I have also been teaching weekend workshops at PLACE for Sustainable Living since 2012. My teaching strives for the cultivation of the learning community wherein students are invited to experiment with personal and collective evolution.
People Linking Art Community and Ecology, PLACE, is the name of this sustainability center we are in the fourth year of establishing in the Golden Gate District of North Oakland.
The Plant was an inner city permaculture and nature awareness center, located in the lower bottoms of West Oakland. I found three contiguous lots, two vacant and one with a boarded up building and contacted the owner. We erected tiny homes, a dome and a mud hut. We planted gardens and dug ponds. Compost toilets, peepeeponics and greywater systems satisfied our regenerative infrastructure needs. A neighbor started a small plant nursery. We made friends with local community organizers and hosted a small street festival called "Green Soul Fest."
It was the 2009 global day of climate action. We wanted to make a creative statement about the dominance of car culture. We found a dead car, cordoned off an area by Ashby Bart in Berkeley, and handed out sledgehammers to people that needed some "climate therapy." People loved. We swept up the street impeccably and towed the junked car to the scrap yard by a team of bicyclists.