Our First Week in Moscow

Art for Water's first week in Moscow, Idaho was busy with paper tearing, school visits, a presentation to the Moscow Rotary Club, and typing in selected written contributions for the video portion of the Stream of Conscience installation. We visited three schools in Moscow – the high school and two elementary schools – as well as a junior high/high school in Potlatch, which was about a 40 minute drive through dramatic countryside. The responses from students have been thoughtful and heartfelt and will make this Stream of Conscience installation at the Prichard Art Gallery compelling and poignant.

A big hit in the presentation is the five gallon gas can that we have filled with water for the students to experience the weight of water. They learn that young girls, mostly in Africa, carry five gallons of water between four and eight miles every day for their families and as a result they are not able to go to school. The fact that it's the girls that have to do this usually gets a rise out of the group. Most of the students agree that this chore would not be a welcome one. Although there are always a couple in the crowd (usually in high school) who claim carrying 40 pounds of water eight miles every day would be easy!

We look forward to our school visits this week in Moscow and Troy, as well as  two presentations at the Prichard Gallery on Friday with Terra Graphics, an environmental engineering company.

Thank you to Mohawk Fine Papers for donating all of the beautiful, cover weight paper for this project in Moscow! All of the participants love working on such high-quality paper and relish the process of choosing from all of the exquisite colors. 

Art for Water on the Palouse

by Will Broussard

Looking East, North Moscow

The Art for Water team has made it to Moscow, Idaho! On Friday, February 3rd we met an 8:35 am flight out of Boston’s Logan airport and successfully made connecting flights in Chicago and Seattle. The sun had already set when we landed in Spokane, secured our rental car, and pushed south into the jetlagged night for 2 more hours. When we arrived in Moscow, we were delighted to be stationary.

Bob Mahler, Rotary Club President

We are here for 3 weeks as guests of the University of Idaho, where we have been invited to spread the word about Art for Water and gather materials for another installation of Stream of Conscience at the Prichard Art Gallery in downtown Moscow. We will be visiting public and charter schools within the greater Moscow area, along with rotary clubs, university classrooms, and other community organizations interested in our work. As of Wednesday, 200 students and adults have contributed to Stream of Conscience with thoughts, memories, song lyrics, and poems all inspired by the concern for the global water crisis. We will continue to reach out to new groups within the community as the weeks progress.

 

Moscow Charter School students

Our temporary home away from home is the art studio/guest house of James Reid, classical guitarist and professor of music at the University of Idaho, and his wife, Jeanne Leffingwell, creator of the Million Bead Project. It is a cozy residence located in northeast Moscow, just a minute’s walk from open farm country and the rolling hills that characterize the Palouse Prairie region. Less than a week into our stay we are smitten with the small town atmosphere of Moscow; its friendly people and beautiful landscape. Stay tuned for updates from Idaho as the river of words steadily grows into Stream of Conscience.

Art for Water in New York

Last Sunday, I took the Stream of Conscience project to The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York. Joni Doherty of the New England Center for Civic Life at Franklin Pierce University joined me. Before the event, we attended High Mass, which was moving thanks to a professional choir, a children’s choir, an organist, pageantry, incense, candles, and more. Communion was received by many in a huge circle encompassing the altar. The sermon was about the hazards of allowing knowledge to make us overconfident. Great advice! The Cathedral itself upon entering will stop you in your tracks and elicit a gasp, so to experience this service within such a sacred and monumental space was awe-inspiring. It set the tone for a thoughtful exchange about water issues afterwards in the Cathedral House. Thanks to Catherine Skopic for organizing this event, which included lunch, stimulating conversation, an Art for Water slide presentation, and participants sharing their thoughts and feelings about water on torn pieces of paper, which will be used in future Stream of Conscience installations.

The night before, Joni and I discovered a musical event called RiverProject at the Abrons Art Center on the lower east side. Seeing we were in the city for a Stream of Conscience experience, we agreed this was the ticket for our evening. Composer and musician, Eve Beglarian kayaked down the Mississippi River and created an amazing musical tribute to her experience, the people she encountered, and the river itself. Three other musicians as well as another vocalist joined Eve on stage. This outstanding performance included poetry, lyrics and vocals on multi levels, soundscapes, video, and electronics. The majesty as well as the peaceableness of the Mississippi were evident throughout the evening thanks to Eve’s powerful creative skills and the multiple talents of everyone on stage. Joni and I floated away feeling that it wasn’t chance that led us to RiverProject, but that we were intended to experience another artist’s reverence and response to water.

Putting the Fun in Funding

by Will Broussard and Christine Destrempes

 

When I describe Art for Water to new acquaintances, I sometimes struggle with how to define the work we do. Our participation-based, monumental installations are generated not just as art but also to foster community while building awareness around the global water crisis. Our work spans disciplines like hydrology, wealth inequality, conservation, poetry and artistic expression. Art for Water cannot be summarized with a quick word or two, and it is for this reason that our projects routinely face funding challenges from traditional foundations. Luckily, there are organizations that understand our plight and are working to support the projects of multidisciplinary artists. Last week, I had the opportunity to attend an interesting and informative panel discussion in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The event was hosted by Artists in Context, an organization “designed to assemble artists and other creative thinkers across disciplines to conceptualize new ways of representing and acting upon the critical issues of our time.” The subject of the panel was “ Falling through the Cracks: Funding Integrative Socially-Engaged Practice,” a subject of great import for us here at Art for Water. Moderating the discussion was Lisa Gross, founder of the Boston Tree Party and Hybrid Vigor Projects, two Boston-based organizations founded on urban agriculture, cross-discipline collaboration, and public participation art projects. The panelists were diverse and impressive, and included Cuong Hoang, Director of Programs at Mott Philanthropic, Andrew Sempere, Trustee from The Awesome Foundation, and Nerissa Cooney and Alexander Hage, co-founders of Feast Mass. All organizations represented were founded in the greater Boston area.

Cuong offered a glimpse into the realm of traditional foundation funding. But he also is involved in an alternative, volunteer giving circle that funds projects in Boston’s Asian community. Andrew gave us some background on The Awesome Foundation as well as tips for applying. He also showed slides of some awesomely awesome projects they have funded. Alex and Nerissa explained the labor-intensive production of a Feast Mass event: Volunteers cook a homemade dinner with local ingredients for which guests pay on a sliding scale. Project information is posted on the walls and contestants wear paper crowns so that they stand out in the crowd. After dinner, contestants give a brief presentation about their projects and guests vote for their favorite. The winner walks away with cash!

I was struck by the amount of time and energy that is being invested by so many people to help artists and community organizers achieve their goals. The models for these alternative-funding sources are simple, flexible, and non-bureaucratic, which means they’re also fun. They may not be dealing with huge sums of money, but they make up for that in innovation and community building. The way in which they fund concepts is in itself a creative, public-participation project! This truly was an inspiring and energizing evening. Thanks to Artists in Context for hosting such an awesome event!

The Experiment

 

by Will Broussard

My first assignment at Art for Water took place on Sunday. I was to document "The Experiment;" a focus group/pilot project for a new participatory performance piece, Voicing the Common, under development by Christine Destrempes and Joni Doherty. A week prior to the event a prompt was circulated locally among close friends and colleagues, instructing them to spend 10 minutes in close proximity to a source of water of their choosing, be it inside a quiet bathroom, next to a frozen river, or under a torrential rainstorm.

Whether the source was natural or artificial, the project stated that audience members devote the first 5 minutes to silently experiencing their surroundings. Any smells, sounds, tastes or tactile sensations should be noted. The following 5 minutes were then spent documenting the experience in a written, but otherwise open ended fashion. Poetry, a lists of impressions, or simple objective observation were among the suggestions provided. Once this written piece was completed The Experiment was ready for launch.

The event began with guests reading their work aloud, one at a time, while seated in a circle. After the initial go around, the group was instructed to read their work as a whole; simultaneously. The result was a cacophony of sounds that were chaotic at first, but developed a cohesive flow and natural rhythm over time. There was group chanting and group whispering of written work, followed by collective laughter in the face of shared vulnerability. In the end, the audience felt appreciative for the experimental process, and enjoyed a deep conviction that, though very enjoyable, the exercise laid important groundwork for Christine and Joni's future public-participation projects together.

Art for Water Gets Much-Needed Help

Will Broussard, who is working towards a Masters Degree in Environmental Studies from Antioch University New England, has joined Art for Water for the spring semester. He will focus on social media and keeping you up to date on all of our projects. You should be hearing from us a lot more often now. The embarrassment of posting about an event that happened four months ago will be a thing of the past!

Will grew up in southern Maine, where he developed an interest in drawing and observing the natural world from a young age. He is excited to join the Art for Water team and combine his growing interest in community-based art projects with a deep passion for environmental stewardship. When not assisting with internship duties, Will can be found searching New England for rare birds, edible fungi, and stimulating conversation.

The fall and early winter at Art for Water were consumed by grant writing to fund all of the ideas we have to raise awareness of the shrinking availability of clean water. As a result, many important tasks, such as keeping you informed, weren't accomplished. But now, with our trusty intern, Art for Water will have a presence via this blog, Facebook, and our newsletter.

We have decided to seek more artist-in-residencies at the college level in addition to pursuing grants to fund our work. Will and I are about to embark on one at the University of Idaho in Moscow in February. And this time, we'll keep you posted!

Art for Water at New England College

I intended to post this a long time ago. It was one of the many spinning plates that dropped last fall. This was such a wonderful experience for us and the students, that I just can't not publish it.

On Sunday, September 4th, Art for Water participated in the freshmen orientation at New England College in Henniker, NH by facilitating student created sculpture made from found objects. The original plan was to collect the objects from the Contoocook River as a clean up effort that would result in some materials with which to work. However, Hurricane Irene made the Contoocook too dangerously high and rapid to mine. A faculty member found some trash dumped in the woods, which was retrieved and others contributed from their own collections. We had quite an assortment of junk: a plastic sink, fencing, one crutch, one ski pole, tires, vacuum cleaner, two weed whackers, etc. Eleven freshmen enthusiastically took part on their second day on campus. We had only three hours to work, but they managed to create three distinct sculptures in only two! As I had never worked with trash as a medium, Art for Water's Production Manager, Noel Greiner, who also happens to be a sculptor of metal found objects, came along to help. Thanks to Noel, students had the opportunity to work with serious power tools while creating their pieces.

This was the first year that New England College engaged their incoming freshmen with an exciting range of activities. Groups hiked, participated on a ropes course, learned life saving techniques, opened the NEC observatory for the first time since the 1960’s, joined a drum circle, learned about Henniker’s historic bridges, floods, and river, photographed Henniker’s most scenic vistas, created a place for spiritual reflection, and created a video that captured some of the best moments from the day!

Apparently, this is a giant leap forward as in previous years freshmen had to sit through two days of lectures on what they shouldn't do now that they've finally gotten some freedom. Hurray for New England College for making the class of 2015's introduction to higher learning meaningful, engaging, stimulating, and fun. Art for Water was thrilled to take part.