Art at the Edges
an offering
an invitation
a provocation
Art invites us to look again, askance, anew.
It speaks to the spirit and ignites imagination.
It whispers of possibilities we might not be ready for.
It prepares us for change.
EcoGather laments the ways in which art has been exited to the very edges of education, captured and either cheaply commodified or enclosed for elite engagement only. We long to see bright mosaics in village centers, marvelous murals on the sides of the buildings we where we go about our business, and artists honored and fed in our communities.
In a small but meaningful effort to make art a bigger part of our experiences at the end of the modern era, EcoGather has commissioned Contributing Artist Renée Barry to create a series of twelve block prints that support sense-making in the space between. Each month, EcoGather will share a new piece of Renée’s work and a brief statement about the print or its inspiration. The collection will build over the next year, populating this page with art that is intended to be accessible. We encourage you to download these files, print them, post them, share them, given them as gifts… We ask only that you credit Renée (@reneebarryart) and point folks toward EcoGather (@eco.gathering) when you do.
Complete Creative Commons license details below.
The World is Changing
July 2024
An inky block print, black and white, of a groundhog grounding itself in the grass with the text “THE WORLD IS CHANGING” and a dandelion.
For this piece, Renée connected with the groundhogs she often watches through her kitchen window, as well as the ones who venture into the neighbor’s yard. Her neighbor keepss trying to get rid of them, but the groundhogs keep coming back. They have no intention of leaving their their favorite spot, their home.
Staring at groundhog’s brought to mind Groundhog’s Day, the holiday, and started a wonder about what the groundhog might have to say about the changing climate.
This activity also got Renée thinking about Groundhog’s day, the movie, which seemed especially relevant to a quote on EcoGather’s vision board, which reads: “We are the world breaking old habits..”
This piece encourages comfort with what can’t be denied and reminds us that we can be part of good endings, breaking out of patterns that repeating over and over again. Embracing change means that we do not have to stay stuck.
Deepen
August 2024
A linoleum block print, presented in black and white, of a loon in the act of diving, looking down, resolute, creating ripples on the surface of the water, ink texture giving the impression of small bubble. The loon’s webbed feet are the only parts of its body still above water, but for how long? The word DEEPEN appears in the lower left corner, within the dark water.
Ahead of EcoGather’s late August conversation with Dougald Hine, Renee visited with and took inspiration from Hine’s writing, and was particularly moved by ideas from the Dark Mountain Manifesto (2009) written with Paul Kingsnorth.
—
Loons are skilled swimmers, migratory birds, and able to adapt in both fresh and saltwater. They are known for diving, kicking from webbed feet and following their pointed bills deep, up to two hundred feet below. Renee’s memories of loons kept coming to mind as she read the Manifesto.
-
“There is a fall coming”
(A loon tips into cold water) -
“There is an underlying darkness at the root of everything we have built”
(The loon is investigating something deep) -
“We show no sign of slowing down… The bubble is civilization… Consider the structures on which that bubble has been built”
(There is a call to join in this journey). -
What would happen if we looked down?”
(To follow the loon swimming below) -
“This is a moment to ask deep questions and to ask them urgently”
(Asking questions like what if we looked down?What is this bubble?) -
“We believe that the roots of these crises lie in the stories we have been telling ourselves”
(What have we been telling ourselves? Who is this we?” Who is this ourselves? What and who else is there? Including the loon?) -
“Words and images can change minds, hearts, even the course of history” (They can)
Weave
September 2024
A linoleum block print of a spider weaving a web at night between two arching solomon seal stems, with stars and the moon and drops of water glistening. The word “weave” curves at the bottom.
The piece was edited digitally.
For September’s print, Renée was inspired by Ecogather’s recent themes of weaving, (re)connection, lines, and shapes. These prompted her to think about spiders in the dark making webs. This is something that honestly used to unsettle her, but more recently, she’s begun to think about spiders and their webs in new ways and with new feelings.
Renée slept with this piece of linoleum by her pillow as part of the creative process, reclaiming the night as something connecting rather than alienating, aware of the spiders probably out there making their own pieces of art throughout the night, inspiring her.
There Are Choices
October 2024
A linoleum block print of three of Renée’s neighbors: a squirrel, skunk, and deer representing different biological stress responses. The squirrel runs in flight, the skunk’s ready to fight, and the deer chooses quietly to fawn, energy vibrating off each of them. The text reminds “THERE ARE CHOICES,” even in moments of trouble.
This month Renée was moved by themes of trauma and responses that can arise in complex social environments during times of weaving, collapse, and change. Renée was thinking about the role of boundaries in relationships and how to practice them more actively as opposed to allowing
unconscious patterns to reproduce through history. Sometimes you just need a reminder of your list of options, however small, like to reconnect with your breath. An awareness of even this can be powerful.
“Being oppressed means the absence of choices” -bell hooks
“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears” -Nelson Mandela
Renée got to attend a local film screening of “Where Olive Trees Weep” about occupation and survival in Palestine which is on her mind and heart a lot lately. Her friend Jonathan Brenneman lovingly introduced the documentary and led them through guided questions afterward, focused on
ways to understand and move through ongoing traumas toward new possibilities. This experience, as well as attending the Diagonalism EcoGathering, were meaningful to her this
month, witnessing groups of us face our world together and not run away. We stayed together even when it was hard, and that means a lot to her. We did that and she wants to keep doing that.
She started thinking about the series as a poem or prayer, because so far, it kind of reads like one:
the world is changing…
deepen.
weave.
there are choices.
Thank you, Grief
November 2024
A linoleum block print with the words “Thank you grief” appear underneath a borage plant glowing at night. Color enters the series with blues, purples, pinks, and neon green. The star
shaped flowers have five points like the gates of grief. Some of the petals are not yet ready to open, their heads hanging heavy, covered in bristly feelers. Some blossoms look down, others gaze up. One is staring directly as if with eye contact. A heart is in the center. The piece was edited digitally.
Renée was fortunate to be part of an EcoGathering this month on grief, a container she imagines many of us must have really needed, perhaps our entire lives, or even for generations before. At the end, when people were transitioning out of the virtual room, as Nina Simone played in the background, she typed a short note in the chat including “thank you grief” in the spirit of appreciating its presence with us, a sure continuation of love.
Welcoming and even celebrating grief’s arrival inspired this block print of a borage plant.
She remember’s when she first met borage in an herbalism intensive class at Sterling in the garden. Immediately she noticed how the “star” flowers had a heaviness yet glow to them. “Borage for courage” she was taught, and this started building a connection in her mind between courage and
grief, darkness and color. She imagined starflowers bioluminescent at night, all the buds at different points in their journey. What connected for her in the EcoGathering was how grief seems to revive us, offering us something to feel even in times of loss, opening us to proof of a connection still going on. So it feels right to her that grief would be what introduces color into the series.
The world is changing
Deepen
Weave
There are choices
Thank you grief
PO Box 72
16 Sterling Drive
Craftsbury Common, VT 05827
(802) 586-7711
Sterling acknowledges that the land on which we gather, also known as Vermont, is the traditional and unceded territory of the Abenaki people. We also learn in and from a range of landscapes that belong to other indigenous peoples.
As we seek deep and reciprocal relationships with nature, we respect and honor the place-based and cultural wisdom of indigenous ancestors and contemporaries. These words are offered as a reminder that must be matched with acts of respect and repair.
Copyright © 2024 – Sterling College