Resources for Eco Designs

Doing some research for a wetland/woodland design and I found these great websites with fun designs for waterways, stormwater management, and creative reuse of materials:

http://ecologiadesign.com/author/ecologiadesign/page/2/

http://www.metrocouncil.org/environment/Water/BMP/manual.htm

What Are They Thinking?

Leave a comment with your take on what they might be thinking

and win a card with a funny animal picture!

Walk Into The Woods Opening Night

Upcoming Show: Space Planning

I'm currently showing work at Wellpoint Oriental Medicine in Fairmount in Philadelphia (2014 Fairmount Ave.) in an evolving show over the month. I had to move some work in to keep the walls from being empty as another artist moved out, but I only had the work sitting around my house to put up on short notice.

Starting next month, date TBA, I'll hang work in the waiting area, hallway and a second room that doors treatment doors open up to face. The space appealed to me because the eastern medicine, acupuncture and massage connects well with my nature photography and environmental conservation interest. It led me to start thinking about Feng Shui when I was hanging the nine pieces currently in the waiting room (the flowing water photo should flow into the building, not send energy out).

I wish I had more training in wall placement and creative show hanging. It's always a struggle to hang shows myself and feel like I did something to make the work more dynamic and not just static dots on the wall. Anyone teach a class in show hanging?

Come check out the results as they change from what I already hung in the space to the new pieces that go up in early November!

Weekend Garden Project

Today I finally got to this project, making a marker for my bed in the community garden, so I can be friendly with my neighbors who ask where is your bed? And this makes it easy to see. It reminds me of houses at the shore that have the cute names and signs.

I found a cement remnant in our rock pile that was about 8" tall and 6" across, cleaned the surface with a rag, and applied a layer of white acrylic paint, then went back over the edges with more white. I mixed blue, green and white together and painted a graduated fade from top to bottom.

The letters were harder to paint, so I painted the letters, then outlined them with a slightly darker green, then went back over the interior of each letter. I thinned out the paint to paint the flowers and it was much easier to work with. My garden has a huge lavender plant, so I wanted to make sure that was featured on my sign.

I dug a shallow trench for the bottom and back filled dirt behind the stone and stepped on it to firm it up so the rock doesn't fall over. You can see there's not much happening in the garden in terms of growth, so this is a bright happy reminder that all will be colorful again!

Silent Spring

I'm finishing the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, which if you have not read, I think you should. Even though it was printed in 1962, the historic systematic poisoning of our environment is something all people should be aware of and it just makes me want to know more about what is happening now.

Rachel was a marine biologist for the US Fish and Wildlife Service and she blew the whistle on the use of super strength industrial poisons in the water, air and soil, meant to kill a pesky plant or bug but actually killing humans and wildlife and their children for generations to come.

Her observations are supported by studies and stories of rivers where all the fish were killed, sprayings that killed livestock, and people dying of nervous system damage and cancer.

The book was widely read when it came out and lead to public outrage (as well as death threats) and the banning of DDT one of the worst offending pesticides. But as Al Gore points out in the introduction, we still produce DDT, we just ship it off to foreign countries for them to use.

Some of Carson's arguments are very relevant today. She compares the fight against cancer to the fight against infectious diseases of the last century. Instead of just treating people who had diseases like Tuberculosis, scientists looked for the environmental causes and prevented the disease (by removing contaminated communal pump handles). For some reason, though, we think of cancer as a disease we fight through treatment of the afflicted. We don't spend research dollars removing carcinogens from our food, air, soil and water. And she points out, there will never be one magic pill to cure cancer because it has too many causes and forms in the body.

I thought this was going to be an environmentalist book about the planet. But, it turns out this is a book about humans and how we have poisoned ourselves.

Some of the things we can do to combat all this is think about the soap, detergent, bug spray, air cleaner, bathroom cleanser, fertilizer, paint stripper we use and how we use it. Even phosphates in the water can make us more susseptible to cancers. We can think about where our food comes from and how it was treated while it was growing and what was in the soil it grew in and the water it was watered with. We can learn about the companies we live around and buy from and the by-poducts of their manufacturing. And we can learn about the historic dumping and desecrating of our surroundings. I found out recently the place where I work is next to land where lead was being processed for decades. Yikes! We can also support great folks like the ones below: GRID magazine is a Philly free magazine focused on local sustainability. What more could we ask for. I love all of their projects, restaurants, articles, it's just great. The Green Project is in New Orleans and I wish we had one here in Philly. They recycle paint and housing materials and household items, fixtures and furniture. This stuff just heads straight to the landfill in Philly. They have awesome craft workshops, used clothing redesign contests, art supplies and a warehouse and yard full of items for your house. It's fun to look at their items on flickr.

On the upside Philly is now doing Recycling Pays! Yeah! They scan your bucket, weigh your recycyclables and you can redeem points for stuff online! Now if I can just find a container big enough...

New Painting!

Here's my newest painting! It's another scene I photographed at the Woodford house in Fairmount Park, here in Philly. I have to tour these other houses.

Mill Creek Farm Fundraiser Tonight!

Mill Creek's Fundraiser is taking place tonight at the First Unitarian Church at 20th and Chestnut Streets in Philly. If you can't make it, still consider donating to their Urban Farm to keep them growing food with neighbors and for neighbors!

I'm selling the photo below to benefit Mill Creek, It's the sign on their gate that explains their philosophy. Click on the photo to go to my etsy site to purchase it. All of the proceeds go to Mill Creek!

West Philly and Black Friday thru Cyber Monday Sales

BIG SALE!

Buy Two Get One FREE
on Any items in my shop:

Card Sets, Photos, Matted Images

Here are some of the new photos I took in West Philly last weekend that are included in the sale. I wandered far and wide through the neighborhoods and found lots of colorful signs, homes, graffiti, shops, though I couldn't find the sign on Lancaster Ave. that says "The Hollywood Blvd. of Philadelphia" or was it Wilshire Blvd?

Window Boxes and Sidewalk Planters

Window boxes around the neighborhood:

And planters on the sidewalk:

New Tote In Floral Fabric and Circles My mom said looked like the inside of the human body!

I decided to make a tote for myself for the summer and picked out the fabric, cut out the shapes, but had no working sewing machine, so I finally sewed it up last night when I visited my mom's house.

My mom said the inside looked like the inside of the human body, which it does kind of look like platelets and red blood cells, but it also reminds me of a watermelon with a green exterior and a pink interior.

Hopefully it will function well as a daily bag for work. I overdid it a bit buying fabric, so I could make about 20 in different colors, so I'll have plenty if I decid to make adjustments to the size or pockets...