5/5-5/17: ENDANGERED SPECIES: Honoring & Acknowledging Our Natural World (217 S. Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena CA 91105)
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Date: 2008-05-05, 11:03AM PDT
ENDANGERED SPECIES, a group exhibition honoring and acknowledging our vulnerable natural world, is on view at The Folk Tree from April 19 – May 17, 2008. The show, which coincides with Earth Day, includes twelve local artists represented by painting, printmaking, assemblage, paper mache, mixed media, ceramics and more. A portion of the proceeds from ENDANGERED SPECIES will benefit the Pasadena Humane Society & SPCA.
The public is invited to a reception on Saturday, April 19, from 2 – 6 P.M. The Folk Tree also hosts a book event from 3 – 5 P.M. on April 19 for Pasadena historian Elizabeth Pomeroy, who will be signing PASADENA: A NATURAL HISTORY (Images of America). And, the Pasadena Humane Society’s mobile unit will be visiting from 3:15 – 5:00 P.M. with animals available for adoption and information about their programs.
At this point, it is hard to refute empirical evidence that the world’s natural balance is severely compromised. Thus, it is an especially critical time to draw attention to nature’s wonders, to acknowledge its weaknesses, and to work toward change. ENDANGERED SPECIES includes artwork addressing the following related themes: 1) extinct/endangered/threatened species; 2) nature’s beauty and fragility; 3) humanity’s impact on the environment; and 4) contemporary threats to the “ethnosphere,” a term coined by Wade Davis, explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society, and noted Harvard educated anthropologist and ethnobotanist. In his book, Light at the Edge of the World, he defines “ethnosphere” as “the sum total of all thoughts and dreams, myths, and intuitions brought into being by the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness.” ”We may not think of these things as global resources -- like air, water, and green life -- but they truly are. And they, too, are threatened by rampant modernization and globalization,” write the editors of the Utne Reader in a March 6, 2008 on-line article about Davis by Juniper Glass.
ENDANGERED SPECIES includes work by: Ulla Anobile (paper mache); Esther Barr (embossed copper); Robin Bevan (cut paper); Danny Gonzalez (block prints); Stefani Gruenberg (ceramics); Linda Jaques (giclee prints, painting); Jacqueline Marks (ceramics); Denise Monaghan (painting); Joel Nakamura (painting on tin); Terry Davitt Powell (mixed media); Suzanne Saul (painting); and Linda Vallejo (painting).
Barr’s work addresses the interdependence of ocean species. Regarding the kelp pieces on view, she says, “Giant kelp and bull kelp, while incredibly prolific, growing 2 feet a day, could become endangered due to the farming of sea urchins which eat only the root of the kelp, killing the entire plant.” Powell comments, “my artwork occurs at the intersection of human society and the animal world, where I strive to find the new forms of beauty that arise out of the constantly shifting equilibriums between the two spheres…I create images that re-see nature and the natural world in places where it has become nearly invisible.” Saul discusses the piece “Big Money Tree” saying, “It represents my distress over the fact that our forests are now disappearing rapidly all over the world. The beetles in the piece are metaphors for corporate greed and lack of concern for our planet’s future.” Jaques’ dream animals “represent another class of threatened and endangered creatures.” They are part of the “interior ethnosphere of the human mind and soul undergoing unprecedented change and endangerment…rapidly being absorbed into a globalized future. ”
- Location: 217 S. Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena CA 91105
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PostingID: 668775784