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.

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.

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 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.

NOURISH/HEAL:  The garden will nourish its visitors –  both literally and figuratively.  Pesticide free edible fruit will be nourishing to human and animal guests.  Also, the trees and plants have been selected specifically to ensure they work together to purify the toxins in the soil and to sustain themselves and a rich habitat for local fauna over time.

EDUCATE: Signage and sculptural features in the garden will highlight Newburyport’s history of innovation and will link the area’s past with its present. The garden will act as a living laboratory, by cleaning up the soil through the use of hyper-accumulating plants and engaging local students and members of the community in soil testing and monitoring the remediation of toxins. GAL will use the Alchemical Garden as a center for workshops and other events that will educate the public about soil contamination, remediation, ecosystems  and permaculture.

INSPIRE: The Alchemical Garden focuses on the web of relationships between people and the natural world. Signage in the garden will inform  and engage visitors to act in the interest of the community’s future. In addition to the construction of the art park, the Alchemical Garden project will contribute to the community in innovative ways though: educational workshops and interactive art performances that will seek to awaken each individual’s own capacity for imagination and action and to become more engaged stewards of the environment.

The Alchemical Garden is a multi-year project, with completion anticipated in 2013. GAL is grateful to the New England Foundation for the Arts for supporting our mission and  launching the first phase of the garden with a $20,000 grant. To fund our full proposal, we need an additional 136K over the next 24 months. To finish this first phase we have a 2011 fund-raising “target” of securing an additional $36,000 in private donations. GAL believes that no donation is too small and encourages anyone and everyone who believes this will be a valuable addition to both the rail trail and the city’s green mission to be a co-creator. GAL is grateful to the Urban Arts Institute at the Massachusetts College of Art for acting as our fiscal sponsor so that donation can be tax-deductible.

“Funded in part by the Fund for the Arts, a public art program of the New England Foundation for the Arts.”

To make a tax deductable donation to the Alchmical Garden project click here . For The Green Artists League to receive the donation, Alchemical Garden/Green Artists League must be put in the Designation Field on the Urban Arts/Network for Good website.

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 20^th century industry–to the products and services of the more than 100 businesses currently residing in the Industrial parks surrounding the garden.

“We are looking at the Alchemical Garden as a gift by the community for the community,” said GAL artist, Erin Stack. “GAL is dedicated to co-creating public art which inspires, stirs the imagination and is inclusive, educational, and sustainable.” Using the principles of permaculture, an innovative and “green” gardening method, plantings will require minimal maintenance once established. The art and architectural features will be created mostly from living plant material, recycled materials and benign, non-hazardous, industrial waste.

“The Green Artists League is uniquely positioned to design and install this innovative, interactive, and grant-funded garden on the Rail Trail,” said Geordie Vining, Senior Project Manager for the Newburyport Planning Office. “I am not aware of anyone else who can integrate landscaping, sculpture, education, and outreach in this way.  The G.A.L. has an interesting track record with the New Eden Garden collaborative in Newbury and the community garden at the Griffin House for Aged Men, and they are committed to fund-raising and maintenance.  I think their energy will add a lot to the Clipper City Rail Trail and the community.”

The Alchemical Garden is a multi-year project, with completion anticipated in 2012, with a 2010 fund-raising “target” of securing an additional $36,000 in private donations. GAL believes that no donation is too small and encourages anyone and everyone who believes this will be a valuable addition to both the rail trail and the city’s green mission to be a co-creator. GAL is grateful to the Urban Arts Institute at the Massachusetts College of Art for acting as our fiscal sponsor so that donation can be tax-deductible.

“Funded in part by the Fund for the Arts, a public art program of the New England Foundation for the Arts.”