Happy Soil Day.

Happy National Soil Day. Notice the length of the root system of this turf grass-just a few inches. 👎

🤔

The image I posted is not soil to be celebrated.It is what I call mindless conformity 🤨AND - now for the good news- 🌱☘️🍀☘️🌿

It is an opportunity to help save our planet and that we should celebrate.

Let me explain- this is the typical ground cover that covers 99.99% of the homes in the United States. It is a mono-crop of turfgrass. Monocrops are not healthy for soil. Mother Nature needs diversity to be healthy. To go against nature, homeowners have to apply chemical inputs to keep their monocrop turf grass looking perfect. These fertilizers, fungicides, herbicides, and pesticides kill all the living matter. They also kill our insects and valuable Keystone species.

In contrast, healthy soil, especially on the coastal prairie, is a sponge for soaking up rainwater and keeping our planet cool. Houston was a coastal prairie covered in native grasses that had massive roots systems. Some extended 18’. The coastal prairie has the capability to absorb massive amounts of moisture/water. They also act as a filter to clean the water and retain water. Water held in healthy soil is how the planet cools itself. Healthy soil also sequesters carbon out of the air and puts it back into the soil. The coastal Prairie plays a large role in the global environment. Houstonians have paved, asphalted, and covered in turf grass 600 square miles that makeup Houston. Reimaging urban landscapes is an opportunity to save our planet. Turfgrass covers more acreage in the US than farmed land. 🤠 this is an easy way to comply with mother nature. I am using ny art to find ways to reimagined urban landscapes to work with mother nature Healthy soil= healthy people. Happy soil day. #cindeeklementart #artactivism #bioart #soilart #art #conservationart #soil #regenerativeart.

Herman Park is getting in touch with it’s Texas Coastal Prairie heritage. - yahoo!

Herman Park is revitalizing damaged soil and bringing nature back to the park..

Your 💵 is your voice.

People ask me all the time what can we do to restore balance in the environment. And I tell them ”where you spend your money directly impacts the environment.” This Christmas give a lovely gift to someone you love that will generate our natural resources.

Shoutout HTX

Anytime an organization or individual takes notice of my work it is a gift. Thank you Shoutout HTX for supporting me and other local artists.

Couped up energies

Films on Houston's natural ecology - I can’t think of anything better to focus our couped up energies on than learning about our native landscapes. When the land is unhealthy, it is impossible for the species that live upon it to be healthy. I hope these films will inspire new ways to care for our urban landscapes. 🐛🐝🌺🐞🐸🐠🦋🐃🕊 have a safe masked day.

Army Corps of Engineers study

The Army Corps of Engineers study to reduce flooding risk does not consider utilizing any nature-based solutions. Here is a fascinating discussion of nature-based solutions that will not cost $1 -$12 billion.

“How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! How short his time! and consequently how poor will his products be, compared with those accumulated by Nature during whole geological periods.” 

                                                      —Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species

I was already working on this piece and the artist/activist/conservationist statement that it visually supports. I am excited to get it photographed and out to the public. There is no question that Charles Darwin had it right. Before we spend $12 billion and wreck the Katy Prairie and Buffalo Bayou let’s review a study by bioengineeers.

”We see nothing of these slow changes in progress, until the hand of time has marked the long lapse of ages”-Darwin

Darwin’s observance is no longer correct, As we continue to expand our cities we have have ramped up the hand of time, we are fast-forwarding and witnessing evolution. This can be good or it can be bad. Millions of species going extinct on our watch is not good; there is a benefit to seeing the effect of our actions. This knowledge is power, join me and decide to change the way we see urban environnents, and act accordingly. We can write our own evolutionary script. We can return to protecting natures .

Reimagining urban landscapes- how plants and animals are evolving in cities.is an eye-opener.

Future inspiration

Ants and farmers

World of Hum- a humdinger

Keystones in El Paso

50” x 10’

watercolor monotype

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Research- eradicating rats and coconuts

The impact of eradicating a non native species

Another conservation benefit from COVID 19 - Sea Turtle numbers are up during 2020

It is amazing how naturere can reguvinate itself when humans step back. We should ask our selves what does this tell us? How can we benefit from this observation?

Sea turtles in Florida

Green turtle nests:

• 2020: 8,110 (unexpectedly high for a "low year")

• 2019: 15,784 (record, "high year")

• 2018: 1,230 (typical "low year")

Loggerhead nests:

• 2020: 12,968

• 2019: 10,813

• 2018: 11,901

Leatherback nests:

• 2020: 40

• 2019: 36

• 2018: 17

These watercolor monotypes are the pieces I discovered my technique on.

Fragility study 30” X 22”

Here I experimented with how wet my paper was. I love the running color on this particular piece. It would not work for everything.

Fragility- Kaleidoscope

2017

Watercolor monotype

30” X 22”

Same Time Next Year

The sidewalks in my neighborhood are my nature trail. I walk with my eyes on the prowl for intriguing insects, exoskeletons, insect wings, feathers, dried flowers, twigs, leaves, seeds, and pods — things my children’s eyes taught me to find during our walks together over the years. Since 2013, these biological mementos have found their way into my bronze work in the molds of nests. Each piece is a reflection of that year’s ecology and records the time and movement of environmental restoration. Initially, I was unaware of the landscape around me, but as my art dove deeper into environmental restoration and Hurricane Harvey changed our city, I realized that my days are, in fact, full of sterile surfaces. With COVID-19 quarantine, children in my neighborhood started venturing outside and looking for things to capture their curiosity. Delighted with their new interest, I realized that the green spaces and puddles children explore now are no longer filled with a diversity of life; the box turtles, bullfrogs, tadpoles, bumblebees, and assortments of flitting insects have evaporated with the spray of insecticides and herbicides in our neighborhoods. The selection is reduced to cicadas, the common beetle, honeybees, a rare native bee, and an abundance of Cuban lizards that dwell in turf grasses, boxwoods, crepe myrtles and oaks. I have awakened to cultural landscape uniformity. COVID has changed how I see the need for perfect lawns; the dirty truth is mosquito home-misting machines, obsessive weed control, artificial turf and a lack of plant diversity have turned urban neighborhoods into manicured monocultures for humans exploring video games. These habitat changes in massive population centers are fast-forwarding evolution: loss of wildlife habitat is one of the biggest threats facing many animal species. This does not have to be—it is a societal choice, the ability to speed up evolution can go both ways. Through my works – Lawndale’s Symbiosis, Endangered Knowledge: The Soul of Humus, Gust, World of Hum, Rumblings and Root to Water—I am committed to creating work that educates and helps communities change how we landscape our cities to include valuing the natural world and turning back the evolution. In Dirt to Soil, Gabe Brown quotes Don Campbell, “If you want to make small changes, change how you do things, if you want to make big changes change how you see.” When I come across intriguing flora or fauna on my urban trail, albeit few and far between, I see them as evidence that can inspire a revolution in the landscape. If they are expired and will not decompose, I collect them. I see these bronze cast nests as urban wildlife fossils—biographies, every year a chapter recording Houston's environmental awakening. As an optimist—environmental—art—activist my work focuses on revealing endangered knowledge to change how we see urban landscapes and activate cooling the planet through our cityscapes. As migratory birds return year after year to build nests and raise their young, I return with optimism in my step. I envision witnessing the return of four hundred plus butterfly species and eight hundred bee species native to Texas. I can see this returned wildlife capturing my future grandkids' imaginations. I will tell them the story of how insects almost disappeared and how every yard is a micro-ecosystem and matters. I imagine their hands building nests with a diversity that I cannot imagine. I hear their voices telling me in one breath about the fuzziest-biggest bee they ever saw, covered in golden dust nesting in a patch of ground beneath the sunflowers not far from the silverleaf nightshade. I see them bringing me a tail-feather from a Red Shoulder Hawk and asking, "what does it hunt" and is it the bird that sounds like the squirrel's screech. After a rain, I see them finding two bullfrogs attached and their tiny ribbons of floating eggs in a pond. I hear them tell me not to touch the caterpillar of the southern flannel moth, and asking me, “how does it sting?”. At the low of evening when dragonflies hover; I will watch as they study the night heron’s quiet solitary stance as it stalks small citizens of the grass, I will smile as they question the raucous warnings of ravens and the scoldings of nut collecting squirrels. I will feel their excitement when neighborhood raccoons appear from storm sewers and scavenge treats from dog bowls and opossums waddle fence lines, searching out grubs and open garage doors. I will follow their eyes when the silent patrol of the lone coyote visits the shadows of our boulevards from their bayou bound dens. I let them sleep outside and hear their heavy eye lids ask, why do the owls ask who? I listen as they wake up to a concert of white-winged doves. I will feel peace when they are wise to nature.

SAME TIME NEXT YEAR 2019

4.75” X 10” X 5.5”

bronze

SAME TIME NEXT YEAR 2018

5” X 9” X 7.5”

bronze

photo by N. Baker

SAME TIME NEXT YEAR 2017

4" X 13" X 8"

bronze

photo by Nash Baker

Coffee with inspiring Texas Women conservationists.

Curtis reads everything. When he finds articles, I will enjoy heaves them for me on the kitchen counter, where I have my morning coffee. This article is from Texas Parks and Wildlife. I had coffee with these Ina Hogg, Terry Hershey, and Ladybird. I am in awe.

They were strong, forward-thinking women. You would not believe how hard it is to get people to plant flowers.

I wonder what advice they would give me? Probably don’t be so opinionated. 😜🐝💐🌺🌻🐞🦋🐌🕊💧🐠

Becoming a Conscious Carnivore- I made the lead photograph in an article in the Dallas Morning News. I am wearing the dog people dad cap.

This was not my first rodeo when it comes to being a conscious carnivore; I was four years old when I had my first exoerience. That was a long time ago and another story. Since then, my experiences in harvesting protein have been few and far between. The most intimate experience I have not felt was the right time to release it into the wild public. The experience in this article was very impactful, beautifully photographed, and written. Lynda Gonzalez did a beautiful job capturing what can be an unspeakable and imaginable moment into today's world that is so disconnected from wildlife. Check out Lynda’s article in the Dallas Morning news Becoming a Concious Carnivore @dallasmorningnews @lyndamgonzalez

https://www.dallasnews.com/food/2020/10/05/becoming-a-conscious-carnivore-texas-bison-harvest-shows-meat-eaters-how-to-honor-the-animal/

Subterranous secrets

Once I started researching roots, I was in love. They have many cool features as a group and individually. I have three bronze roots completed and a few more in the works. Many scientific labs study root characteristics for their role in food production. I am interested in these conversations and those that discuss the roots architecture. Under recognized for their amazing features roots bring many values to the table. They are a tool that sequesters carbon, transports water deep into the soil and pumps it up Into the plant. They inhibit erosion and are the heart and vascular system of the planet. And that is just a start.

Endangered Knowledge- in my own family- a conversation with my mother about Dell City.

These last several weeks, I have struggled to write my Gust artist statement. I always start by getting too much into the history of the environment. My first attempt focused too much on the Dust bowls of the ‘30s, ‘50s, ’70sand ’80s. Mainly because I was not aware, there were any other dust bowls other than in the dirty thirties, and this unknown knowledge was surprising. Sunday, I called my Mom, Minnie Lee Travis, on my morning walk, and we had an interesting conversation about Dell City and the dust. The conversation started when I told her I was using my Gust sculpture to look at regenerative agriculture practices as a solution to wind erosion and desertification. She inspired this connection of the piece to regenerative agriculture A few years ago, when she mentioned the time they ended up with two feet of dust in their home after a storm. Hearing this comment was when it occurred to me that the desert it's wind and dust that consumed my early years was human-made. On my walk my Mom went on to tell me she used to tape all the windows shut to keep the dust-out. If the wind was blowing, you could not see to drive on the road to our home. She was not sure if I would remember. I mentioned the government’s solution to the 1930’s dust bowl was a wall of trees. She commented yes that in the ‘50s, the government sent them free trees to plant. She went on to tell me that one year after a particularly bad crop of cotton, my father bought a new plow that would dig extra deep to reach the “good soil.” That year’s crop was no better, and the dust storms were worse. I expect my father had consulted with one of the American Farm Bureau representatives who would have recommended the plow. Lastly, my mother mentioned that she remembers one day meeting an old rancher from the area. Dell City did not have a doctor, so once a week or so, a doctor from El Paso would spend a day in Dell City, seeing patients. She was standing in line to see the doctor when she met an old rancher for the first time. They discussed the weather as strangers do. In their conversation, he told my mom that he could remember when the land around Dell City used to be covered in grasses as high as a horse’s belly.

While farming in Dell City my parents had three children, me and my big brothers so of course a grassy area by the house was important. She said It was a struggle because the wind would blow all the dust from the plowed bare fields into the yard and bury the grass. Grass stopped the dust yet it was never suggested as a solution to the dust storms.

I am adding images to this post of my last visit to Dell City.

My Mom looking at grave markers in Dell City in 2017.

A view of the landscape from the front walkway of our old home. This is one of the two areas my parents had grass for us to play on.

A view from the side of the house where my brother Dean and I used to play with toy cement trucks and dig holes.

Tree rings - mother nature’s baby book

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201009121932.htm

All moms love to record their babies growth and jot down important moments. So does Mother Nature. Through geology scientist have studied civilizations and soil health and now humans are seeing that tree rings are recording not only the trees life but climate change. Trees as a “climate proxy” is fascinating. My environmental interests is presently resting in the prairies. If tree rings are a proxy in the rainforest I am sure there is a proxy for precipitation in the prairies. The natural world is a fascinating stimulus for creativity.

Climate history imagined in a faux bois chair seat I made in early 20000- time flies

COVID 19 unintended consequence- Oops, I dropped my phone in the pond.

Early during Quarantine I started thinking about taking photographs of the lillies from just under the surface. I researched for underwater cases for both my phone and camera began in May. Paralyzed by too much information I still had not pulled the trigger to make the purchase in July. My son Griffin always the optimist and supporter of all my daring creative adventures insisted - “just do it, your phone can handle it”, he would insisted.(Griffin also pushes me to Make art that makes people uncomfortable.) It turn out if you take a lot of pond photos at some point you will drop your phone in the pond. And then you go with it. I fell in love with the underworld. Mean while - Our big fish started acting bizarre they were not coming to the surface when I walked up to the edge. In fact they disappeared to the the deep end. In 15 years of pond observations this is a new occurrence. Normally they come to the top and greet me in the feeding corner at the sound of my garage door. I keep the fish food in the garage. Curtis and I discussed many reasons for the change in behavior. It turns out a night heron was hunting them from our roof or it could have been the red shoulder hawks that spent the summer in our trees. Anyway I am wondering what do the fish see that is scaring them. The power of gravity gave me permission to submerge my phone (accidents happen) - an unintended consequence of Covid 19. I started trying to angle my phone camera lens up to see what the fish see. I still don’t know what the fish see of the predatory human world, however my phone sees an interesting reflective image. I now have 4,000 pond images  🐝🐬🐟🐠🐌🐞🌺🌻💐🦋 and I am not complaining. 

A note from my Uncle and artist John Warren Travis recalling the landscapes that have shaped his work and words- genes are strange and mysterious creatures.

i arrived in california in 1960 to someone raised in el paso. texas in the forties, it was transcendent the ocean the state parks the tree lined streets on the hills and the flowers flowers everywhere i still rermember west texas with its deserts and mountains i look back on therm with awe the franklin the pass to the north el paso del norte mt cristo rey carlsbad caverns there was no t.v. i still can recall these locales and vistas i carry my landscapes with me san francisco was another country the fog the hippies the hills the bridges the bay the theatre of the haight ashbury all were intoxicating i paid my way by teaching and designing sets and costumes and inadvertently with help from many others eager to change the landscape of the american theatre we succeeded at some point i wanted to become a fine arts painter and moved gradually to painting my feelings about the abundance around me landscapes that were both spiritual and cultural sadly two years ago i had to leave california and move to columbia missouri the heart of the midwest a wise man once said the midwest is the last frontier and i am beginning to believe he was right the lanscapes here are bolder the huge skies the seas of grass the trees a bald cypress that is over 800 years on the old lewis and clark trail the big muddy the great missouri i still think of el paso and san francisco at night in my dreams in this time of covid i cannot go back thankfully i carry my landscapes with me

Looking at changing landscapes through my work, I find inspiration in my uncle’s poetic expression of landscapes through grand brush stokes on canvas, eloquent theater designs and rivers of prose. He posted this on Facebook earlier this week. Clearly Travis genes are deeply rooted in love for landscape and nature.

Uncle Warren  to be closer to family has retired to aunt Genie Lou and uncle Widgies’s ranch in Columbia Missouri. He is still actively painting and keeping up with his website.

https://www.johnwarrentravis.com/

Lawndale Art Center — Symbiosis environmental art activism project announced

Lawndale Art Center a staple on my radar as a possible venue for an environmental art exhibition. The sculpture garden, primed to be relandscaped in a manner that could communicate any number of environmental issues in my head.

The Lawndale Art Center Sculpture garden before the 2019 re-landscape.

I have had a few casual discussions with Stephanie about these ideas in the past, however other opportunities came my way, and frankly, I dropped the ball.

During the first COVID 19 quarantine, Lawndale Art Center reached out to me regarding their sculpture garden. They were interested to know if I would assist them with some weeding in their newly landscaped sculpture garden, I often volunteer there. When I heard the words, “newly landscaped sculpture garden,” my heart fell to the ground. I had blown it, I missed the best art venue opportunity to create a piece that looks at urban landscape as a found object. I was crushed, disappointed and angry at myself. I decided to focus on my Endangered Knowledge: The Soul of Humus, a piece I am creating for Sculpture Month Houston. In turning Lawndale down I sent them a copy of the proposal I made to SMH. A few days later I remember thinking to myself, “well you blew that opportunity, you will never get a show at Lawndale now.” A few weeks after that— they called me back and asked me to meet them at the sculpture garden. Masked I met with Stephanie and Emily and they asked me to do a site-specific environmental piece in the newly relandscaped garden. It was the last thing I expected—A dream come true was not in my mind of possible COVID19 realities. We also discussed their need for some happiness in the garden. The garden does not have any beneficials planted. Sympathetic to their need for some visual happiness I offered to plant a few flowers.

By this time it is unbearable—Houston—July—Hot.

What can you plant in July and have it not fry, if anything? I am not an experienced gardener I am an artist/activist and a citizen environmentalist—but my friend and past President of the Harris County Master Gardeners, artist, and curator is a very knowledgable gardener. A super busy Renassaince man, Will Isbell kindly offered to meet me on a Friday evening at the garden to see if there was anything I could plant that would not die in this July heat. There was not, but we did have a great talk.

We both saw the existing garden in the same way a missed opportunity for an environmental artist. And then it hit me. I suggested that I propose to Lawndale that the two of us do a project that takes the existing new traditional landscaped garden and use it as a found object to create a piece to activate change in Houston’s landscape. Will did not hesitate.

The question was how do I get them on board. They have already spent good money and the garden by any standards is beautifully done. One thing everyone knows about Lawndale, it is an art space for the voices of artists breaking boundaries and unearthing contemporary knowledge, nothing is too daring for Lawndale. They are the space in Houston to open minds. They were encouraging and interested in this new idea and wanted me to continue working on a concept for a solo environmental piece as well the piece with Will.

I am still num with these two opportunities and excited with the potential to instill hope and heal the environment.

Lawndale announced the project Will and I are doing together last week. Below is the proposal for the work. I wrote it in early July, as I read the opening paragraph today, with California on fire, and Houston flooding again I am taken back by how much the world has changed since I wrote it.— and not in a good way.

Lawndale Sculpture Garden Proposal

Cindee Travis Klement and William Isbell

What is to be gained in the year 2020, the year of perfect vision? In our largest cities, a tiny virus is killing our most vulnerable, crippling our strongest economies, forcing our families into food lines, and providing kindling for social reform protests. In the natural world tucked within our largest cities, this same tiny virus has improved the air that we breathe, returned fireflies to our summer nights, and allowed wildlife to inhabit our neighborhoods. The connection between the land, plants, mankind, and wildlife in urban environments has never been more evident.

What is to be gained in the COVID 19 moment of enlightenment: our eyes have opened to the state of our living systems, and we have discovered that unimaginable change is possible. We have seen that we cannot wait for the tests to tell us if we are sick. Without design, we have found an unprecedented moment, we have gained an opportunity to change.

SYMBIOSIS

As visual artists and art activists, we will connect soil health and the health of our city. We will create a living piece of site-specific art activism that will reimagine the urban landscape and answer the question — how do we holistically restore an ecological balance that can coexist in Houston with nature/ wildlife through sculpture and community involvement. We see the Mary E. Bawden Sculpture Garden's terrain with its manicured, status quo landscape as our found object. With ordinary tools, organic matter, with the help of the community, we will sculpt it into the armor that historically protected Houston’s geological epidermis and gave life to its keystone species — the Coastal Prairie ecosystem. The title of this found object sculpture is Symbiosis. Over time Symbiosis we will morph into not only a landscape but also a soundscape that changes kinetically with the seasons.

Lawndale’s Mary E. Bawden Sculpture Garden’s Symbiosis will be a catalyst for change. In addition, it will be functional as a contemporary art exhibition space, a piece of functional activist art as well as a healthy ecosystem/habitat: a sculpture garden that heals and honors the history of the land.

Physical Description of Piece

Once the parameters of the project more are specifically defined we will insert the specific plants, their ecological roll in the

design and define the work.

Environmental Impact

Soil scientists around the globe agree that solutions to global warming, soil erosion, water runoff, drought/flooding, loss of wildlife habitats, and species extinction are rooted in the treatment of our soil — the skin that covers our planet, which includes our residential and small business landscapes.

Restoring the native prairie vegetation increases soil absorption of water and slows floodwaters on land, decreasing water runoff. For every 1% increase per acre of biological organic material, the soil can hold an additional 20,000 gallons of water. Given Houston’s extreme building practices and concrete hardscaping, reimagining the landscapes within Houston's 600 square miles of real estate can significantly impact the region's flooding. In addition, the roots of vegetation in a coastal prairie can extend from eight to fourteen feet deep; these roots sequester and store carbon like an upside-down rainforest, cleaning our air.

Value of Location

Change can happen at lightning speed when innovation is coupled with imitation.

The current state of Lawndale's sculpture garden provides the perfect opportunity to break the mindless conformity that dominates Houston's urban gardens/yards. The sculpture garden has the feel of a perfectly manicured, traditional front yard, making its size and plant selections relatable to the general public.

With the Houston Arboretum transformations, Katy Prairie Conservancy, Buffalo Bayou, and the new Memorial Park renovation, Houstonians have awakened to the importance of native Coastal Prairie landscaping; however, those sites are enormous tracts of land. It isn't easy to visualize those landscapes outside the parks. This permanent and living metamorphosis of Lawndale’s Symbiosis will provide the 2020 vision of transformation by imitation for yards throughout Houston. It will shift mindsets by prompting Houstonians to question Houston’s urban landscaping and imagine a holistic Houston that protects the environment by balancing human, natural and economic systems.

Value for Lawndale Art Center

An art institution that looks at its community holistically to include not just a monoculture of humans but also beneficial plants, animals, and micro-organisms will be groundbreaking. Symbiosis will cultivate a medley of life that historically has defined the place, has impacted its economy and attracted its people. Lawndale’s Symbiosis will leverage this endangered knowledge with a living site-specific art installation that provides the artistic vision that changes hearts and minds. It will connect the history of the land to contemporary art. Using additive and subtractive sculpting techniques and nature the Symbiosis of the Mary E. Bawden sculpture garden will become a living love letter from our past to our future.

Ecological impact of Houston

With 2.3 million people living on a footprint of 600 square miles, close to the Gulf of Mexico, located along the migratory bird pathway, Houston is an urban wildlife sanctuary.
Changing Houston's ecology will profoundly impact our oceans, human life, wildlife, and microbial environmental health. Let’s not miss this unprecedented opportunity and heal the skin of the planet and our people.

Installation Process

The beauty of this piece is to have it be a catalyst for inspiring homeowners and businesses to imitate the change and heal their landscapes too. We will Involve the community to take on an active role in the transformation. Installation of the piece will engage and educate the community in ways to be defined after specifics of the piece are worked out.

Lawndale after one of our early Symbiosis meetings.

Beautiful new fence and Jasmine and crepe Myrtles.

Olive trees, African Iris, Dwarf Yupon Holly, Gardenias, Asian Jasmine, Crepe Myrtles -6 very popular landscape elements across Houston.

Will’s and my found object — Lawndale Art Center, Mary E. Bawden Sculpture Garden