Art, Meaning, Green Living & Health
Art, Meaning, Green Living and Health
(see "TOPICS", below)
3/16/2017 7:03:28 PM
(shared with permission from the March 2017 newsletter of Healthy World Sedona)
In Wendell Berry’s book of essays, The Gift of Good Land (North Point Press, 1981), the essay “Solving for Pattern” is one I have returned to multiple times in the past 35 years. While the book is about agriculture, it is equally about culture in general. Berry says industrial farming solutions to food production “destroy, first, the health of the soil and, finally, the health of human communities,” and that he “could just as easily be talking about sanitation systems that pollute, school systems that graduate illiterate students, medical cures that cause disease .... This is the kind of surprise that is characteristic of our time: the cure proves incurable....” He goes on to say “it is only when it is understood that our agricultural dilemma is characteristic not of our agriculture but of our time that we can begin to understand why these surprises happen, and to work out standards of judgment that may prevent them.”
Berry describes three kinds of solutions to problems:
- The solution that causes a ramifying series of new problems, in which the new problems can’t be solved by the expertise that produced the initial solution. He uses the example of cattle feed lots that produce a factory-like order and efficiency, but this mechanical order immediately produces biological disorder in damaging the health of the animals, the surrounding land and watershed, adjoining ecosystems, and the economic and physical health of human communities.
- The solution which immediately worsens the problem it was intended to solve – as when the problem of soil compaction is “solved” by a bigger tractor, which further compacts the soil, which makes a need for a still bigger tractor. We see similar results with drug treatments that create side effects requiring additional drugs to counteract these effects, each drug adding still more side effects, ultimately destroying the health of the person seeking a cure.
These two kinds of solutions are obviously bad, serving “one good at the expense of another” and leaving the original problem unsolved.
- 3. It is when “health is set down as the aim” that the third kind of solution becomes evident – a solution that causes a ramifying series of solutions, and takes into account the larger pattern or patterns within which the problem exists. In other words, the solution takes a systemic view of the world. This is the move away from reductionism that T. Colin Campbell describes in his book Whole.
As Berry says, “A bad solution is bad, then, because it acts destructively upon the larger patterns in which it is contained ... most likely, because it is formed in ignorance or disregard of them. A bad solution solves for a single purpose or goal, such as increased production. And it is typical of such solutions that they achieve stupendous increases in production at exorbitant biological and social costs.
A good solution is good because it is in harmony with those larger patterns ... the way a healthy organ acts within the body.”
When I think about the benefits of plant-based nutrition, what I see is a “good solution,” in harmony with larger patterns. It is a solution that promotes health and prevents disease. It is a solution that preserves rainforests, allows oceans to recover from animal agriculture pollutants, and fish to recover from human harvesting. It is a solution that saves animals from cruel and inhumane lives and deaths, and saves the land from the impact of industrial livestock production. It is a solution that doesn’t just stop the increase in human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, but significantly reduces those emissions. And with 18% of our GDP going to healthcare spending, it is a solution that heals our economy and frees up resources for infrastructure, education and other development.
To be sure, societal change to plant-based nutrition will cause other problems, particularly for the individuals and industries that make their livings from the production of animal products, or for those whose business is to attempt to mitigate the negative effects of these products (e.g. the pharmaceutical and sickness care industries). But these are the problems of transition, as we move away from unhealthy practices. These are problems like that of the obese person who must buy new clothes when he or she achieves a healthy weight. They are still problems that must be addressed, and they will cause difficulty, but they are ones we should welcome. As we trade harmful and unsustainable practices for those in harmony with nature (both our own nature and that of the larger world), we find solutions that build on each other, reinforcing the pattern of systemic health – in our bodies, our communities, and the natural world.
Beverly Ann Bow, co-founder, Healthy World Sedona,
Sponsor of Sedona VegFest
10/21/2011 12:19:11 AM
Why do we create art? I believe, from my own experience and observations of other artists, that art is an expression of the spiritual core of life. Ultimately, life is one vast, mysterious, interconnected whole. Just like a hologram, each of us is a microcosm of that wholeness, and something within us just simply wants to "have its way with us" and express the truth of that interconnectedness, especially through the arts.
Recently I organized a group art show, "Oneness: Art and the Spiritual Journey" at the Sedona Arts Center. I invited seven artists to submit artwork and statements or poetry around that idea. Our opening is, fittingly, 11-11-11 at 11 am. (Is that enough "ones," you think?).
The show contains some outstanding artwork, including pieces by the celebrated Southwest contemporary landscape artist Joella Jean Mahoney, rich painterly figures in the landscape by Vince Fazio, elegant glimpses of people in everyday life by Libby Caldwell and much more.
Finally, we published it through Blurb — and it turned out beautifully. Take a look!
Like it? You can easily order here. Available in softcover, as well as hardcover and special paper upgrades.
This would be a wonderful gift either for an artist, or someone who values spirituality, or both.
Let me know what you think!
10/31/2009 1:07:05 AM
Today or tomorrow I will be creating a limited edition full-color book of paintings and poems created by participants of a workshop I taught recently for the Sedona Arts Center, "The Heart of Landscape Art."
That sounds both Herculean and costly, doesn't it? But for a Mac user, it's neither.
If you are an artist or art teacher with a Mac, you should know about a great feature of I-Photo that allows you to create such a small book with a very fast turn-around (about a week) at about $1 a page for 8.5 x 11. (Smaller sizes are available also). This is also a great way for artists to show off their best works and perhaps offer it as a bonus to their collectors.
Our focus in the workshop was to delve into the soul of nature and express it with both the written word and a plein air sketch or pastel. The book will include student's artwork, poems and photos, as well as some ideas that I will share about the process of writing poetry with outdoor painting.( If you are interested in a copy, let me know!)
If you've never created a Mac Book, here's how, in a nutshell (an easy I-Photo tutorial will guide you further):
1. Assemble your digital images into an album in I-Photo.
2. Select them all (command-A).
3. Click on "Book" at the bottom of the window.
4. Select a style (I like "contemporary" -- most are more oriented toward family snapshots, etc.)
5. You can either "autoflow" them into a default layout, and then rearrange them as you like, or manually drag them from the line of images it creates into the page layout templates.
6. Under "page design" at the bottom, you can select how many pictures to use on each page or you can select "introduction" to create a template for text on a given page. Play with it: it's easy.
7. Using the zoom bar, lower right, enlarge your page layouts so you can easily enter text and captions as needed. You can also easily drag images from one position to another, as you will see. Likewise, you can drag page layouts around in various sequences.
8. When you are done, simply click on "Buy book" and complete the credit card and shipping info.
Presto! In a week to ten days you will have your books in hand!
The main limitation I've found with this program is that the templates are fixed in some ways. You can't move the position of the text block, for example, and it's not very compatible with paintings that are square (crops them into a rectangle of standard proportions). But it makes up for that deficit by being beautifully designed in the first place and SO, so easy.
Also, note that if your images are too low-resolution, you may have to reduce their size. I-Photo's book program will warn you about this. That said, have found incredible quality on a full-page picture of an 8x10 painting that I shot with my hand-held point-and-shoot 2 meg. Canon camera. Mostly, though, in
my own book of poems and paintings, I used high-quality professional photos.
But the real beauty of it is that it doesn't require great computer skills to learn. It's quite intuitive, as Macs are meant to be, and you and others will love the result.
I'm looking forward to having it ready for the class in time for them to give copies out at Christmas.
And the class was such a success, SAC will offer it
again.
I would love to share this experience with you. It's appropriate for all levels of artists, beginning to advanced.
Click
here for a downloadable PDf flyer of the workshop.
Here is Carol Oveross, artist and yoga instructor, sketching in pastels at Red Rock Crossing after participants had written a piece about the feelings and meanings invoked by the landscape:
