Documenting the art of creating living soil. SOILED — Tighty-Whities 2021

SOILED — Tighty-Whities 2021

Photograph by N. Baker

How do you document art that lives beneath our feet? Creating art beneath the Earth’s surface I am finding new ways to document the work and it's movement. This photograph is the result. Let me explain. To test soil for fungi that recycle wood and live on dead material soil, scientists buried cotton fabric. In Symbiosis, to document the Saprophytic fungi, I planted new, washed men's medium cotton briefs. This photograph demonstrates the results. In 2022 I will recreate the piece and grow the tighty-whities in a vertical column. This change will document that living soil, the diversity of microbes is built from the top down. In contrast, when my father farmed in the 50s and 60s, the farm bureau that advised him told him to invest in a new plow to dig deeper to access the richest soil.

The purpose of my work is to change how we see landscape. It isn’t just about creating beautiful gardens. Landscape can store carbon and soak up rainwater to cool the planet. It is the cheapest and fastest way to get our planet back on track.

Digging up the briefs I immediately knew I had made a mistake. I left them In the garden’s soil too long. Still, I dug them out with tender care. The petroleum-based elastic band was entwined with a plant root. The root took the elastic leg 6” deeper into the earth than I planted it. I left the elastic and the root as I found them. Laid them on a board and took them immediately to Nash’s photography studio to document the work.

First, I delicately untangled the elastic. The cotton had completely decayed. The elastic was not biodegradable.

Seeing that the briefs were still intact minus the cotton and plus the root I started reassembling the briefs and the added appendage.

In art many times you have to listen to the materials.

Symbiosis - Nash Prairie - seed collecting

Mark Morganstern of Morning Star Prairie Plants invited me to join him to collect seeds for Symbiosis at the Nature Concervancy’s Nash Prairie Preserve. “The 400-acre tract is one of the last remaining segments of the Great Coastal Prairie, which once encompassed six million acres between Lafayette, Louisiana and Corpus Christi, Texas. Nash is a pristine piece of prairieland, largely unaltered by man or machine. More than 300 plant species have been documented there, including several rare species and at least one type of grass thought to be extinct in Texas since the 1800s.“

I will plant the seeds in Symbiosis this fall. Next summer I will collect seeds and share them with other properties.

Green tree frog on a Rattlesnake master. The rattlesnake master reportedly supports 250 species of wildlife.

Rattlesnake master seeds

The prairie

Coneflower seeds

Rosinweed Sunflower seeds

Rosinweed sunflower

These are the seeds on the plant

The Gift of Crepe Myrtles part 1 — Ready-Mades, Assemblage

Found object — Lagerstromia indica

Size varies 70"– 93" X 49' X 4'

Two of the five Crepe Myrtles on the northwest corner, before I started sculpting Symbiosis, — summer of 2020.

The first thing I did was release the stakes supporting the trees. Just like humans trees become strong from movement, thickening their trunks and stimulating root growth.

The Crepe Myrtles were generously donated to the garden before I started sculpting Symbiosis. Donations are the lifeblood of Lawndale — it is crucial I not clip off that support. Planted in a row on the Travis street side, the treasured trees are the west border of the space next to the fence; they are a significant element of the work, objets trouvés, ready-mades. They anchor, frame and end the assemblage. They are stage left from the parking lot. Many of their characteristics will change every year; they are moving targets, living found objects. I will use them to create the above-ground kinetic components of the sculpture.

detail of the found objects

They are stage left from the parking lot. summer of 2020

There is a symmetry in Symbiosis that balances the needs of the Lawndale Art Center's artists, exhibitions, neighbors, urban wildlife, and the soundscape of urban sculpture gardens. As I prune the Crepe Myrtles, I have to weigh the impact of these elements with every extraction; most features are not physically part of the garden but are part of the whole. Like all sculptures, they have components you can't see; the armature supports everything and the welds that give strength.

The Crepe Myrtles are planted in a row on Travis Street, at the far west end of the garden.

This work requires considerable online research and quiet observations: listening, seeing, and questioning; I continue to learn and observe what wildlife these Lawndale treasures will benefit, symbiotically balancing the needs of the living organism in the heart of the arts district on the Coastal Prairie. What would the arts be without the influence of the natural world?

I took this image through the Crepe Myrtles at the Fall 2020 opening. There was plenty of room for social distancing. It was the first COVID event for Lawndale and for me.