TEEAC NEWSLETTER Dec. 2017

Touching Earth

EcoArt Collaborative - Newsletter

TOUCHING EARTH
ECOART WORKSHOPS

TOUCHING EARTH
MAGAZINE

ENVIRONMENTAL
ART REPORTING

TEEAC ECOART
COMMUNITY EVENTS

FALL ISSUE DECEMBER 2017

Touching Earth
EcoArt Workshops

This last Spring the Touching Earth EcoArt Collaborative joined the Wells Reserve at Laudholm Farm
in collaboration to present our introductory and short course ecoart workshops. We offered one day
Introductory EcoArt Workshops and two to four day Short Course EcoArt Workshops. In both sets of
workshops we offered nature writing, environmental sensory awareness, and landscape photography.
As with the beginnings of many endeavors, our workshop participation has been, could I say, slow. We
have had numerous inquires but actual workshop participation has been minimal. We are continually
adjusting our ecoart workshops so that we can meet the needs of our future workshop participants.
Going forward, we will make adjustments to both our workshop content and workshop schedule.
One avenue we are looking at is to present more and different ecoart workshops; present them
throughout the year; and in different locations.

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Touching Earth
Magazine

CONNECTING WITH OUR NATURAL WORLD

Our human desire to understand and express
our connection and relationship within the natural world

Part 1

A BRIEF AND WOEFULLY INCOMPLETE INQUIRY
BY MARK EMERSON

THANKS TO THE WOMEN AND MEN OF OUR
PALEOLITHIC PAST

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Our human desire to understand and express
our connection and relationship within the natural world
has a long history that is found globally and extends back tens of thousands of years.

Could it be that through the making of art our human ancestors attempted to
express and communicate the mysterious connections and relationships
they were living within the natural world?

Archeologists and art historians have created many theories about why the
cave paintings of the Paleolithic and Neolithic period were made.
They question;
Were the prehistoric cave paintings art?
Were they made purely for an aesthetic sense of beauty?
Were they created for spiritual and sacred rituals?
Were the cave paintings used in storytelling or
as teaching tools for hunting and survival?

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While we don’t have definitive answers from the archeologists and
art historians, the prehistory cave paintings are considered to be art.

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Cave Painting
Not Known

Cave Painting
France

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Cave Painting
France

The purpose of Paleolithic cave paintings is unclear.
Without definitive understand coming from either archaeological or art historical communities we are given to further musings.

Cave Painting
India

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Would you agree that within it’s essence, art making has qualities of
wonder, exploration, and expression?

If so, would you then agree that while a piece of art may hold some or all of these qualities, it is the
maker of the art who is endowed with these qualities?

If so, would you then agree that a person endowed with these qualities of wonder, exploration, and
expression has a need to engage and manifest these qualities?

If you agree with this way of thinking would it be conceivable to think that the prehistoric cave
paintings were created with wonder in attempts to understand and express the deep mysteries of

human connection and relationship within the natural world?

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Cave Painting
France

Cave Painting
France

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Cave Painting Cave Painting
France Africa

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Above Below
Cave Painting Cave Painting

Not known India

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Cave Painting
India

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Cave Painting
Spain

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Touching Earth
Magazine

From the Portfolios of Short Course
Touching Earth EcoArt Workshop

EcoArt Workshop Participant’s

The Touching Earth Magazine publish images and writings These experiential and interdisciplinary ecoart workshops
from our workshop participant’s portfolios. In this issue we are an introduction into your exploration of, reflection
show the images of Carol Hornblower and Andrea Simoneau.
upon, and expression of your personal connection within
Carol Hornblower the natural world.

Carol participated in last Spring’s short course ecoart landscape In this short course ecoart landscape photography
photography workshop. workshop an emphasis is placed on the photograph as an
art form, your creative/artistic process, image composition
Andrea Simoneau and design, lighting, and basic image processing.

Andrea participated in both last Spring’s introductory While engaged with your personal ecoart exploration
ecoart workshop and short course ecoart landscape project the explorative focus is upon the sensual, aesthetic,
photography workshop. and contextual qualities that give rise to the land’s sense of
place and spirit, and the exploration of your personal
connections with the land.

Waters of
the Mousam River
and the Wells Reserve

Images by: Carol Hornblower

“I’ve always been drawn to water: the sight and sound of
pounding surf and rushing rivers exhilarate me, and have,
in some sense, felt like kindred spirits. During this project,
however, it was the quiet waters, the ones above the dam
and at mid-tide in inlets, that most drew me in. Their
peaceful and reflective qualities have served as a reminder
of the need to slow down and observe more carefully.”

Mousam River at
Twine Mill Dam
Kennebunk, Maine

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Rogers Pond
Kennebunk, Maine

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Wells Reserve
Wells, Maine

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Messengers
From the Natural World

Image by: Andrea Simoneau Wells Reserve
Wells, Maine
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Wells Reserve
Wells, Maine

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Wells Reserve
Wells, Maine

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Wells Reserve
Wells, Maine

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Environmental Art
Reporting

A Photographer Collected Four Years Worth Of Trash To Show Just How
Wasteful Humans Can Be

By Priscilla Frank

“We’re often told about the quantity of waste we produce, but I think the impact of
pictures can be much powerful than words,” Antoine Repessé explains.

Photographs by ANTOINE REPESSE

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In 2011, self-taught photographer Antoine Repessé stopped throwing things away. Along with 200 friends and
colleagues, he accumulated around 70 cubic meters (or 18,000 liquid gallons) of recyclable waste. After he filled
his flat in France to the brim with toilet rolls, newspapers, water bottles, cans and boxes — he organized a photo
shoot.
“We’re often told about the quantity of waste we produce, but I think the impact of pictures can be much powerful
than words,” Repessé told The Huffington Post. And so he enlisted friends to pose amongst the heaps of trash that
encrusted his floors and stretched up the walls like massive, invincible creatures. The series, titled “#365
Unpacked,” shows the invisible aftermath of our consumerist habits, a disturbing vision of the messes often kept
out of sight and out of mind.

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The most confounding aspect of Repessé’s project is not the substantial quantity of recyclable waste he and his friends
collected themselves. The truly scary part is that many of us would end up with 1,600 milk bottles, 4,800 toilet rolls, and
800 kilograms of newspapers in our homes if we too took the time to acknowledge the materials we waste every day.
“I was interested in how an object can loose its singularity when you don’t use it as something single but as a part of
something massive,” the artist said. “If you use the same shape so many times it becomes something very different from
what it was before.”

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The series is reminiscent of Chris Jordan’s 2004 “Intolerable Beauty: Portraits of American Mass
Consumption,“ in which massive dumps of cell phones, crushed cars and circuit boards are framed to
resemble dizzying landscapes at once disturbing and beautiful.
“As an American consumer myself, I am in no position to finger wag,” Jordan told The Huffington Post, “but
I do know that when we reflect on a difficult question in the absence of an answer, our attention can turn
inward, and in that space may exist the possibility of some evolution of thought or action. So my hope is that
these photographs can serve as portals to a kind of cultural self-inquiry. It may not be the most comfortable
terrain, but I have heard it said that in risking self-awareness, at least we know that we are awake.”
Whether Repessé’s photos leave you dazzled, horrified, or somewhere in between, hopefully they’ll bring
you pause the next time you throw out an empty cereal box or soda can, thinking about where the little guys
will end up, and just how many friends will be waiting. 

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Touching Earth
EcoArt Community Events

Past Events

This last Spring Equinox 2017 The Touching Earth EcoArt
Collaborative presented Art and the Natural World at the Kennebunk
Free Library. This was a power point presentation that artistically
explored a basic history of our human desire to understand and
express our connection and relationship within the natural world.
Part one of that showing is presented in this newsletter.

During June of 2017 we presenting our Short Course EcoArt
Workshops in collaboration with the Wells Reserve at the Wells
Reserve.

Current Events

Currently we are beginning collaborative discussions with the
New School in Kennebunk, Maine.

Future Events

We are in the process of developing our 2018 events. We are looking
forward to presenting more EcoArt Workshops, holding community
readings and educational presentations, having community ecoart
potluck gatherings, and developing fundraising events.

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Touching Earth EcoArt Collaborative

Board of Directors

President
Mark Emerson

Secretary
Jim Cummings
Treasurer
Lee Middlekauff

Advisory Group

Harold Burbank: Lawyer

Thanks To

Audrey Mathews: Friend and Enthusiastic Supporter
Nik Charov: President Laudholm Trust at the Wells Reserve
Linda Grenfell: Environmental Educator, the Wells Reserve
Megan Grumbling: Writer, Author, Educator
Jim Cummings: Writer, Editor, Author

Founder of EarthEar and Acoustic Ecology Institute

We are looking for advisory board members with skills in marketing,
promotion, fundraising, digital technology snd social media. If you
know someone who's interests are with the arts, literature, and the
natural environment and who’s skills they would like to put to a good
cause, please have them email us at [email protected]

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Tax-Deductible Donations

Our Mission

The Touching Earth EcoArt Collaborative is a non profit environmental arts organization with
501(c)(3) tax exempt status.

The goals of the Touching Earth EcoArt Collaborative are first, to promote awareness of the
human connection with the natural world; second, to promote the exploration and reflection of
one’s personal connection with the natural world through the fine arts, literature, sensory
awareness, natural history and cultural geography; and finally, to promote individual and
collaborative ecoart projects which combine the insights and talents of visual and performing
artists, nature writers and naturalists.

Your tax-deductible contribution is greatly appreciated.

To donate please send your tax-deductible contribution of :

$1,000 $500 $250 $100 $50 $25 $10 $5 or other dollar amount to

The Touching Earth EcoArt Collaborative

P.O. Box 1196

Wells, Maine 04090
BENEFITS OF YOUR TAX DEDUCTIBLE CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTION
• Reduced pricing on all EcoArt Workshops and Events
• Open invitation to our EcoArt Community Gatherings
• Receive our newsletter

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Contact Us

For information on our up coming workshops and community events please contact us at

Touching Earth EcoArt Collaborative

P.O. Box 1196
Wells, Maine
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 207-251-0619
Find and like us on Facebook: @ecoartcollaboratives

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