Endangered Knowledge: The Soul of Humus

A few weeks ago Nash Baker took some in progress shots of my SMH piece. Then I had two weeks of off and on heat exhaustion. It is a rough summer to have an outdoor living sculpture and a piece that requires welding in a space that does not gave AC. I have finally replenished the minerals in my body and I am back to work on my bison. The temperatures are going to be extremely high this week to work outside. :(

Working on Endangered Knowledge: The Soul of Humus in my garage welding studio

Photo by Nash Baker

Symbiosis art activism update - landscape ordinance.

One of my goals as an artist is to inspire city Landscape policy change. Our cities landscape policy evolved before we had the telescopes to understand the living systems below ground. It is Necessary to update these policies that regulate or urban landscapes and utilize the power of out native landscape.

I have made great headways with discussions with city council person Sally Alcorn. She has supported my work and thoughtfully listens to what I am saying. I can see in her face and her actions that applying these regeneration agriculture principles to urban landscapes makes sense to her. She has worked in the city government for many years and understands how the machine works. She does not have landscape policy roots in her background which actually is a good thing, she does not have to unlearn. In the last few weeks, I have facilitated connecting her with two people in the native landscape world.

First Linda Knowles has led the native plant movement in Houston and Texas. She served on the cities committee for designated wildscapes and she has let the Houstin native plant society and is leading the Texas NPS. Linda is a great source of knowledge and will be a great resource for Sallie.

A few weeks ago I emailed Jaime González. Jaime is  Houston Healthy Cities Program Director of The Nature Conservancy Texas Chapter – Houston Office. Jaime is everywhere when it comes to Houston native landscape. Within 5 minutes of emailing him about “Symbiosis” he called me. He wanted to see the work. We met the following day at 8:30 am. It was not too hot yet and we had a great conversation. He was amazed at what a hot bet of wildlife can be revived in the middle of a lifeless concrete urban desert - the museum district. :(. He Specifically, positively commented that I did not leave spaces of dirt separating each plant. I could hear frustration in his voice. It is a social custom to separate species. My goal is to keep the soil covered with a minimum of 1 layer of greenery if not many layers. Hearing him approve was a relief. He also made some plant suggestions for the southwest corner. It was a beautiful corner until the lemon bee balm faded for the season.

Tuesday this week I was able to connect him with Sallie and Hannah Cobb Public Affairs Liaison Office of Council Member Sallie Alcorn City of Houston, At-Large 5. It was a great conversation and I know Jaime will assist Sallie's office with their plans.

Like Jaime, Sallie is a mover- I just received an email from her office that she is meeting with Kelli Ondracek on September 1st to discuss a native landscaping pilot program. A giant leap - this feels good.

can art active change? :) I am trying.

What can changing city landscape policy do? Right now this is how most vacant lots look in houston. This is the vacant lot adjacent to Lawndale. The owner regularly grooms/mows it per city policy.

This vacant lot is actively sequestering carbon and soaking up water cooling the planet. This is responsible urban land management.

In addition it minimizes the need for mowing. I think it would be even better with a surrounding ground cover that did not requiring mowing.

The air pollution from cutting grass for an hour with a gasoline-powered lawn mower is about the same as that from a 100-mile automobile ride, according to a new study from Sweden, which recommends using catalytic converters on mowers.

Endangered Knowledge: The Soul of Humus

Progress from the last two days of work.

Sagged bellie and manhood

Endangered Knowledge: The Soul of Humus

Ferlocks, hocks and nape

Right front leg chap and starting to build the neck muscles. The neck muscles are massive.

I build the legs on separate days. Left keg the hock curves up and right keg the Hock curves down. I still need fetlocks. I think bison have two per foot. More research

Endangered Knowledge: The Soul of Humus

Todays work- His right back haunch and leg.

Symbiosis- the tools of my collaborators

In creating a living sculpture, I have to accept change. I can not control the piece nor do I want to. From soil microbes to leaves, petals and butterflies, bees, skippers and caterpillars, I am always looking to the natural processes. I look to see what does the material want to make, what does it need to be. Competition, succession, disturbance, consumption are the sculpting tools of my collaborator, characteristics of the work. I have to let them follow their path to self-design their regenerating community. I bend my creative processes to the design principles developed through the ages on this planet for this place and time. The time is right to change how we landscape. I believe Houston is the right place and Houstonians the right people to plant the seeds.

Competition

Succession

Disturbance

Consumption

Endangered Knowledge: The Soul of Humus

Front legs and right shoulder

Endangered Knowledge: The Soul of Humus

20’ more of rebar.

I used 20’ more of rebar today to build the hip bones up on both sides and his right side in the stomach area of his side. I worked from the hip to his shoulder.

My work space is not large enough to get a good side photo.

Endangered Knowledge: The Soul of Humus

Stomach, upper hip bones, and more hump.

He still looks like a hybrid giraffe bison, that is only because his muscles and fur come later.

Endangered Knowledge: The Soul of Humus

Another big day of welding..I added a big 96” circumference chest. Put the entire piece on four dollies and started his hump. Below are a few pics from todays work.

Behind my garage is a telephone pole. I use it to bend my rebar. This is a side view where I am going to bend the piece for the chest.

Halfway to becoming a bison chest.

Then I use my weight to even out the shape.

I hang the chest over the back and decide if it is big enough.

Next I weld the ends together .

Recycling some old dollies from past work and deciding on the best plan. Balance and portability is the goal. The brown paper is the footprint of my bisons. Each leg is supported by a dollie.

Thanks to Curtis for getting me the plywood and helping me mount the beast. This is just for while I work on the sculpture and for transportation. It is not part of the work.

Just goofing around

My garage studio assistant is taking a sun break.

Starting to assemble the hump.

And that's a wrap.

SOCIALsculpture — how to see Houston

"If you want to make small changes, change how you do things;

if you want to make big changes, change how you see things."

— In Dirt to Soil, Gabe Brown

How do we restore an ecological balance in Houston? We see Houston in the global ecosystem, see our relationship with wildlife and sea life of the western hemisphere.

Houston

See — Houston can balance humanity and urban wildlife.

Site-Specific installation: Symbiosis is a micro-ecosystem in an important ecological space.

Houston is 600 square miles of mostly privately owned land inhabited by 2.3 million organisms, on the Gulf Coast of South-Eastern North America. Its rainwater runoff feeds the ocean and impacts reefs one hundred miles into the seas. Chemicals from Houston are reported killing reefs 100 miles into the Gulf.

Drain

See — The pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides used to keep Houston’s commercial, residential city and county landscapes manicured are leached by rainwaters that drain into the Gulf of Mexico from our streets.

The plants in Symbiosis do not need chemical inputs to thrive. They have evolved to withstand droughts floods and freezing temperatures.

Located near the lower apex of the triangular-shaped North American continent Houston’s land and water provide nesting, hydration, and nutrition for animals that utilize this critical migratory pathway that funnels migratory life between the northern and southern continents of the western hemisphere. More than one in four birds in the U.S. and Canada has disappeared within my lifetime. Birds play crucial roles in maintaining an ecological balance on the coastal prairie, from eating mosquitos to providing food for scavengers and decomposers.

One In Four Birds In the US Has disappeared In My Lifetime.

See — that birds play crucial roles in maintaining an ecological balance on the coastal prairie, from eating mosquitos to providing food for scavengers and decomposers.

Symbiosis is building living soil that supports bugs, beetles and insects that birds need to feed their young.

A male American Robin sits on the fence at Lawndale at the light of day June 18th, 2021 with Gulf fritillary larvae in his mouth. Until Symbiosis was installed birds flew over Lawndale. The garden was sterile of what modern civilization calls landscape pests/what birds feed their young. The sculpture garden did not offer food or habitat for birds.

Larvae of Gulf Frittilary butterfly – Detail of Symbiosis

See — An important nutrient necessary for birds young to thrive.

With native plants in our urban gardens and commercial outdoor spaces, chemical inputs are not necessary. Chemical-free yards will help bring back the 1107 species once common in the Coastal Prairie.

Houston, the site, has experienced extreme flooding and weather conditions. We are located where once was the Coastal Prairie ecosystem that sequestered Carbon like an upside-down rainforest and absorbed water like a sponge. Of that original landscape, only 1% still exists. And yet, we can see an opportunity to capitalize on Houston’s reputation as the city of energy and cultural diversity. We can mitigate global warming and extreme weather conditions by changing how we see our role in a balanced ecosystem.

Lawndale Symbiosis

Lawndale’s sculpture garden is a micro-ecosystem within an important macro-ecosystem that casts a wide net.

Symbionts

The Passiflora incarnata provides nectar for pollinators. Native bees are the original regenerative farmers, they take nectar and regenerate the flower pollinating the Passiflora incarnata.

This is one species of the 4,000 bees native to the US. (Please note this is not a honey bee. Honey bees are not native to the US. They are part of the industrial farming ecological problem.)

I see an opportunity to create the visual for environmental change. I see hope.

“Look closely at nature and you will understand everything better” - Albert Einstein

Look closely at your micro-ecosystem.

To sustain is not enough. Our civilization has depleted the Earth's soil. It is not enough to sustain a depleted planet; we must all do our part and regenerate soil health to sustain life. Regenerating the Earth’s soil is an ongoing DIY project.

ART CAN ONLY ACTIVATE CHANGE WITH YOUR ADDED PERFORMANCE

—If you care about the environment, help get the conversation going and restore an ecological balance in Houston. Post one image of Houston native plants and or wildlife on Instagram  #lawndalesymbiosis and tag two friends.

In addition, forward this to two friends. 

Ask two friends to do the same, and ask them to ask two more friends, building a pyramid of activism.

For an enhanced experience viewing Houston’s wildlife and landscape I recommend the citizen science apps

“iNaturalist” and “Seek”.

#LawndaleSymbiosis

The Gift of Crepe Myrtles part 1 — Ready-Mades, Assemblage

Found object — Lagerstromia indica

Size varies 70"– 93" X 49' X 4'

Two of the five Crepe Myrtles on the northwest corner, before I started sculpting Symbiosis, — summer of 2020.

The first thing I did was release the stakes supporting the trees. Just like humans trees become strong from movement, thickening their trunks and stimulating root growth.

The Crepe Myrtles were generously donated to the garden before I started sculpting Symbiosis. Donations are the lifeblood of Lawndale — it is crucial I not clip off that support. Planted in a row on the Travis street side, the treasured trees are the west border of the space next to the fence; they are a significant element of the work, objets trouvés, ready-mades. They anchor, frame and end the assemblage. They are stage left from the parking lot. Many of their characteristics will change every year; they are moving targets, living found objects. I will use them to create the above-ground kinetic components of the sculpture.

detail of the found objects

They are stage left from the parking lot. summer of 2020

There is a symmetry in Symbiosis that balances the needs of the Lawndale Art Center's artists, exhibitions, neighbors, urban wildlife, and the soundscape of urban sculpture gardens. As I prune the Crepe Myrtles, I have to weigh the impact of these elements with every extraction; most features are not physically part of the garden but are part of the whole. Like all sculptures, they have components you can't see; the armature supports everything and the welds that give strength.

The Crepe Myrtles are planted in a row on Travis Street, at the far west end of the garden.

This work requires considerable online research and quiet observations: listening, seeing, and questioning; I continue to learn and observe what wildlife these Lawndale treasures will benefit, symbiotically balancing the needs of the living organism in the heart of the arts district on the Coastal Prairie. What would the arts be without the influence of the natural world?

I took this image through the Crepe Myrtles at the Fall 2020 opening. There was plenty of room for social distancing. It was the first COVID event for Lawndale and for me.

Crepe Myrtles, part 2 — The pruning and trimming is actually the creation of a living sculpture and what that effects are.

Lagerstromia indica —The ways of sculpting symbiotic relationships.

In January of 2021, I shaped the Crepe Myrtles. The living organisms impacted by this creative work are an assemblage of considerations. In holistically sculpting a regenerative site-specific sculpture of living organisms, I have to balance the hierarchy of the living creatures; with every cut, I ask how it will impact the whole?

Golden-eye Lichens - Teloschistes chrysophthalmus- Native to the United Kingdom these lichens survive in harsh environments where algae cannot normally survive. Lichens enable algae to live all over the world. They also provide a means to convert carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into oxygen. I found two small patches on one of the Lawndale Crepe Myrtle’s. I took this before the Texas freeze. It survived but is now struggling. Lichens only grow on Crepe Myrtle’s that are struggling, but they do not harm the Crepe Myrtle’s. I am hunting for more information about the relationship between the lichens and the Crepe Myrtle’s.

Cutting-clipping-chopping, I work to balance and enhance four features; make them aesthetically attractive, shape the Crepe Myrtle branches to benefit the birds, the neighboring community,  pollinators and other metropolitan creatures underserved an unknown. I researched how landscapers recommend you prune Crepe Myrtles. I did not want to Crepe Murder them.

Extraction

LOCAL CRIME SCENES

EVIDENCE OF THE COPYCAT MURDERS PLAGUING HOUSTON’S WILDLIFE HABITATS.

I also questioned past practices developed without considering the impact on nature. Landscapers recommend cutting away all horizontal branches for human visual pleasure. That gave me pause—without any horizontal elements, how do birds and squirrels support their nests? I started looking around at birds' nests, something I do all of the time anyway. I observe birds building their nest in protected areas of trees where many cross branches stabilize their nests and protect from wind, sun, and predators.

BIRDS NESTS, PROTECTED FROM WIND, AND SUN BY A WEB OF TREE BRANCHES, AND

HIGH IN THE TREES, SAFE FROM PREDATORS ATTACKING FROM ABOVE.

BIRDS NESTS, PROTECTED FROM WIND, AND SUN BY A WEB OF TREE BRANCHES, AND

HIGH IN THE TREES, SAFE FROM PREDATORS ATTACKING FROM ABOVE.

Left- high in the neighboring Crepe Myrtle is a nest.. RIGHT- A close-up showing how much protection the web of limbs provides for the nest.

If I were only shaping the trees for the birds, I would not cut a twig. For the neighbors walking on the sidewalk, I used the sculpting method of extraction to remove all branches poking out of the fence under 6 feet.

A Neighbor walking along Travis Street. In the future, the white Crepe Myrtles will canopy the sidewalk and provide a shaded path.

On the fence's museum side, I pruned the trees high off the ground as the flowering natives we plant beneath them will need lots of sunshine to support various pollinators. I managed to create a few nooks and Ys where limbs came together. Next year, the trees should be tall enough to provide lots of safe branches for birds to perch on that will stretch high over the sidewalk and shade the neighbors.

I picture a row of clouds spun like cotton candy out of white Crepe Myrtles blooms arching over the fence protecting those strolling from their townhouses to the museums, hiding powerlines from view. — time will twll.

The trees limbs are the armature for several components of the assemblage.