Help Cultivate The Alchemical Garden: An Edible Garden and Art Park at Newburyport’s Rail Trail

Posted by erin on April 25, 2011 3 comments

The Alchemical Garden site February 2010

GAL is turning a desolate  field of weeds into a visually compelling garden that will educate and engage the community for years to come. Located on a 160′ x 25′ site near the south entrance  of  Newburyport’s Clipper City Rail Trail, the Alchemical Garden is a richly layered evolving art and horticulture experience  that is accessible on many different levels to the public.

Alchemical Garden Plot plan

Alchemical Garden is designed to become a model for a sustainable, interactive public garden through the use of symbiotic, low maintenance plantings and recycled materials.

The ancient discipline of Alchemy marries art and science and is famously known for transforming a common material into gold.  The Alchemical Garden will lead the community to transform on a number of levels :

Alchemical Garden with Spring Wheat "Crop Circles" June, 2011

BUILD COMMUNITY:  The Garden creates a gathering space for individuals to form a more intimate relationship with their community.  The space is designed with visual features and seating areas to compel passers-by to pause, reflect, and have a multi-sensory interactive experience ( sight, smell, touch, taste, smell) with the garden and the community.

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Categories: Alchemical Garden, Articulture, Current Events, Projects. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

New Harmony Farm: GAL’s Latest Articulture Project

Posted by erin on March 6, 2012 No comments

GAL artist Erin Stack has taken the principle of “Articulture” to the next level by purchasing 7 acres of farm land in the flood plain of the Merrimack River in West Newbury, MA and has

First Crops at New Harmony Farm, Fall 2011

called her experiment in “regenerative agriculture” New Harmony Farm. Inspired by the Shakers vision of merging spirit, community, beauty and innovation, New Harmony Farm will bring together artists, permaculture specialists, environmental educators, interns and our CSA shareholders in a unique environmental educational program and working certified organic farm. Erin’s vision is to help sustain our community with nutritious organic food while promoting a more intimate understanding of our interdependence with nature. New Harmony Farm will be a  laboratory of local, small scale regenerative agriculture that can adapt to the environmental challenges brought on by climate change.  New Harmony Farm will also be an evolving eco art project that will include a  barn/bioshelter made from recyled shipping container and other materials,  permaculture plantings, art/eco happenings and artist colaborations on designing many of the working “elements” of New Harmony Farm such as chicken tractors for pasturing our heritage breed chickens. New Harmony Farm hopes to take Community Supported Agriculture to a new level in our area through our eco-education, art happenings, and numerous ways to learn and participate in New Harmony’s experiment in creating local earth friendly food production and inspiring people to become more engaged in better stewardship of our threatened resources. To learn more about New Harmony Farm and our Community Supported Agriculture Harvest Share go to www.newharmonyfarm.com.

Categories: Articulture, Projects.

New England Grass Roots Environment Fund Awards 2011 Grant for Alchemical Garden

Posted by erin on May 22, 2011 No comments

Crop Circles and Remediation Field

GAL is very grateful to the New England Grass Roots Fund for the generous grant of $1500 to support the Alchemical Garden in 2011. These funds will help GAL to go forward this year with “Crop Circle and Remediation Field” our  living art installation and soil remediation project.

Categories: Alchemical Garden, Articulture, Current Events, General Information.

Come to Alchemical Garden Work Party and Rail Trail Celebration May 22, 12-4 PM

Posted by erin on May 18, 2011 No comments

Rubedo (Red) Permaculture Tree Guild

Become a co-creator in our community articulture project by joining our Alchemical Garden Work Party  this Sunday, May 22nd from 12:00 – 3:00 .We will be sculpting serpentine mulch pathways and sprucing up the garden. Wear work clothes and, if you can, bring along a wheelbarrow, pitchfork or metal rake. GAL will provide light refreshments, eco and permaculture tips and levity.

As part of the Clipper City Rail Trail Birthday celebration, GAL will offer the rail trail celebrants the opportunity to “sow seeds for our sustainable future”  through planting black Kabuli garbanzo beans, and soy beans in the Alchemical Garden. These legumes will nourish the depleted soil and provide an edible crop for the community.

The Alchemical Garden is located at the south entrance of the Clipper City Rail Trail, 40 Parker Street Newburyport, MA 01950 and straddles the Haley’s Bike Spur.

 

Categories: Alchemical Garden, Articulture, Current Events, Projects. Tags: , , , , , , , .

“Rites of Spring” Makes its Appearance in Provincetown.

Posted by erin on May 11, 2011 No comments

Waiting in line for junk food.

The ubiquitous plastic bottle in our landfills, watersheds, and elsewhere are  the quintessential signifier of frivolous consumer waste and environmental pollution. Frogs are an important indicator species for crisis-level environmental degradation. The present epidemic of malformed, hermaphroditic and sterile frogs  is the harbinger of  zoological disaster.

GAL infiltrated Provincetown during the Provincetown Green Arts Festival with an ecovention spot lighting this dire consequence of waste and pollution on the New England environment. Read the rest of this entry

Categories: Education, geurilla eco-interventions, Performance, Projects. Tags: , , , , , , .

“Rites of Spring” to be Premiered at “Appearances” – Provincetown Green Arts Festival, April 16, 2011

Posted by erin on March 23, 2011 No comments

GAL will be roaming the streets of Provincetown with an eco-intervention that highlights the consequences of waste and pollution on the New England environment. Our giant frog – mutated by water-born toxins with multiple flailing arms and legs – has awakened form winter hibernation and needs food.

Our tragic hero will  engage passers-by and crowds as he moves through the festival begging for sustenance in the form of plastic bottles. Ubiquitous plastic bottles act as the signifier of frivolous consumer waste and environmental pollution, while our indigenous frog, an important indicator species for crisis-level environmental degradation is the harbinger of  zoological disaster. For more information on “Appearances” and the Provincetown Green Arts Festival go to Provincetown Conservation Trust.

Categories: Current Events, geurilla eco-interventions, Performance, Projects. Tags: , , , , , , , .

GAL’s Articulture #1: THe New Eden Collaborative at First Parish Church, Newbury

Posted by erin on March 23, 2011 No comments

2008-Present

New Eden Organic Community Gardens Plot Plan

In the spring of 2008, The Green Artists League became one of the first participants in The New Eden Collaborative – the central environmental mission of the First Parish Church of Newbury.

High Rise Nesting Co-op boxes and Radient City Hen House

First Parish’s goal of bring together individuals and environmental groups to develop sustainable community through organic community gardens, organic chicken co-op, and organic CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and community events was fertile ground for GAL’s first Articulture project.

The participatory art projects at New Eden is the first of GAL’s  3  ”Articulture” community art projects.

GAL inspired projects at the New Eden Collaborative from 2009-2011 include:

  • 2009-2010 New Eden Organic Community Garden Plot created by GAL artist/architect  Stephenie Strogney and myself. The garden was designed to break the utilitarian grid of traditional community gardens to cultivate the contemplative and relational aspects of gardening and community. Plots were clustered into “neighborhoods” and paths were configured as to require the walk to turn several times to get to the other side of the garden as a way to increase awareness of  time and place.

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Categories: Articulture, Current Events, Projects. Tags: , , , , , , .

To Learn More on the Alchemical Garden and GAL Happenings. Sign Up for Our Newsletter

Posted by erin on October 8, 2010 2 comments

Want to learn more about Environmental Art, Alchemy, Articulture, GAL’s Art/Science experiments, opportunities to join in GAL events and more?

Sign up for GAL’s newsletter by contacting Erin at erin@greenartistsleague.org. For immediate gratification on what is happening in all things GAL. Join our rss feed at the lower right hand column of this page.

Categories: Projects.

Newburyport gets NEFA grant in support of GAL’s Alchemical Garden

Posted by erin on May 8, 2010 No comments

Alchemical Garden

Alchemical Garden

On May 3rd 2010, the City of Newburyport  received a grant from the Fund for the Arts at the New England Foundation for the Arts in support of the Alchemical Garden –an art park and edible public garden being installed on the southern gateway to the Clipper City Rail Trail by the Green Artists League (GAL). This prestigious award of $20,000 is the result of a request submitted by the City and co-written by the Planning Office and GAL. Letters of support were sent by both Transition Newburyport and the Coastal Trails Coalition.

Part science, part art, Alchemical Garden will remediate the remaining toxins in the soil while honoring the long legacy of agricultural and  industrial history at the site—from farm and brick factory,  to rail corridor and 20th century industry–to the products and services of the more than 100 businesses currently residing in the Industrial parks surrounding the garden.

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Air Your Dirty Laundry Inspires Next Generation

Posted by erin on January 25, 2010 One comment
GAL inspires student artist

m curtis globalization poster copyright m curtis

Michelle Curtis,  a freshmen at Stonehill College was inspired by GAL visiting artists interative Air your Dirty Laundry.”GAL recently recieved a note from her: “I am a graphic design major at Stonehill and I wanted to share with you  an environmental poster that i did for my graphic design class because you were the inspiration for it. We had to pick an organization that would have supported us if the poster were actually produced by a company. I chose The Green Artists League to support my poster about recycling. The main point of the poster was to show the viewers that there are more than one way to recycle. We are able to recycle trash into art. Please see the attached poster that i did for my class. Thank you for your inspiration.

GAL salutes you! You go Michelle!
Categories: Visiting Artists.
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