Fun Facts Friday - Unfortunate News about the People's Peas Garden!

Hi everyone!

 

This week's Fun Facts Friday features recent unfortunate news about the People's Peas Garden in Queen's Park!

 

See below a message from Jacob Kearey Moreland and their Facebook page for more details about this!

 

https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/414496608609039/

 

Check out our Facebook page and Blog!

https://www.facebook.com/utiesbowtie

http://utiestudio.blogspot.ca/

 

Have a great weekend!

- The UTIES Committee

 

Jacob Kearey Moreland

Breaking News : City of Toronto Workers Destroy Free Community Food Garden Amid Growing Food Crisis

 

Toronto, Friday Sept 28th, 10am

 

This morning workers from the City of Toronto were ordered by City of Toronto Parks Director Richard Ubbens to remove all live plants and food from the People's Peas Garden in Queens Park.

 

Taxpayers dollars were spent to throw plants and food to the dump and lay sod overtop of this most beautiful free community food garden, without warning, without a chance to remove the rare heirloom plant species or harvest the food.

 

The garden was planted by Occupy Gardens and allies on May 1st, international workers day, as an action in defense of local and global food security. While the garden has been growing undisturbed for nearly 5 months, with the help of hundreds in the community, the city deliberately decided to have it removed upon the eve of the Harvest Party and celebration sharing and free local and urban food, which is happening tomorrow from 12-6pm at the garden in Queens Park (northwest section).

 

The reason? The people did not have permission to grow free food on public land. I come from a city and country where one does not need permission to do the right thing. We are experiencing a "glocal" food crisis, where more and more people are lining up at food banks for kraft dinner and peanut butter, waiting lists for community gardens are growing, food prices rising, and our leaders are nowhere to be seen. Rather they are hiding behind their desk ordering the workers to destroy whatever hope we have left.

 

We need help sharing this story far and wide.

 

We will be having our Autumn Jam harvest party/vigil tomorrow as scheduled from 12noon-6pm in the northwest section of Queens Park. https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/414496608609039/

 

As a side note - last Monday Sept 17th gardeners travelled to Ottawa on a Peas Keeping mission for national, global food security, where we planted a free heart-shaped food garden on Parliament Hill, at which point the RCMP stomped on the plants and threatened arresting people, we removed the plants and relayed the sod.

 

Thanks so much for your time and help,

 

In Peas, Lovage & SOILidarity!

 

Jacob Kearey-Moreland

647 379 2324

 

 

October 1st Bake/Art Sale and October 4th Environmental Documentary/Mural/Arts and Crafts Night

Hi all,

We have two lovely events for next week!

October 1st - Bake/Art Sale at the Sidney Smith Lobby
We are selling cake and environmental artwork from 11 to 5 on Monday October 1st in the Sidney Smith Lobby! We shall have Vegetarian Carrot Cake and Vegetarian Vanilla Sponge Cake (made with no eggs) and our committee members are busy preparing environmental artwork for it too. The art will be sold at very lower prices and will hopefully decorate your room or house with beauty! If you would like to volunteer at the bake/art sale or help make some environmental artwork with us, you can email us at utiestudio@gmail.com!

October 4th - Environmental Documentary/Mural/Arts and Crafts Night at the Hart House South Dining Room from 7 pm to 10 pm
Our first members' event will take place on October 4th at the Hart House South Dining Room from 7 pm to 10 pm. We are planning on having a documentary, creating a mural, and everyone making their own environmental art through various forms of materials that will be provided by us. This event will be themed for animals in which the documentary and mural will be surrounding this theme! We shall provide food but we also welcome food from members as long as there are proper ingredients lists for the food items. This event will be themed for animals!

Thanks,

- The UTIES Committee

Robert Smithson's Album

SPIRAL JETTY

Rozel Point, Great Salt Lake, Utah
April 1970
mud, precipitated salt crystals, rocks, water coil 1500' long and 15' wide
Collection: DIA Center for the Arts, New York

BROKEN CIRCLE

Emmen, Holland
Summer 1971
green water, white and yellow sand flats
diameter 140'
canal approximately 12' wide
depth quarry lake 10 to 15'

Floating Island to Travel Around Manhattan IslandNew York, NY 1970/2005
Produced by Minetta Brook in collaboration with the Whitney Museum of American Art

On view September 17-25, 2005
Photo: Jane Cohan
Art (c) Estate of Robert Smithson/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY Image
courtesy of the James Cohan Gallery, New York.

SPIRAL HILL

Emmen, Holland
Summer 1971
earth, black, topsoil, white sand
approximately 75' at base

AMARILLO RAMP

Tecovas Lake, Amarillo, Texas
1973

DEAD TREE

Dusseldorf (destroyed), 1969
for Prospect 69 Exhibition at the Kunsthalle in Dusseldorf
re-installed at Pierogi 2000, New York, May 3 - June 2, 1997
tree, mirrors

MIRROR AND SHELLY SAND

1970
50 mirrors 1'h x 4' wide back to back with overall lenght approximately 28'
1' shelly sand between each set of mirrors
Installation: Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo, Norway

WANDERING CANAL WITH MOUNDS

1971
pencil on paper

BLIND IN THE VALLEY OF SUICIDES

1962
ink on paper
12" x 9"

ALGAE n.d paint and photocollage on masonite 23" x 27"

Artist of the Week Wednesday - Robert Smithson!

This week's Artist of the Week Wednesday is Robert Smithson, an American artist that specializes in land art! His love for nature began at a young age as he loved animal and earthy forms. According to his personal website, "Smithson is most well known for his provocative earthwork, the Spiral Jetty which used rocks and debris to build a 15-foot-wide spiral in Utah's Great Salt Lake. He gained international recognition for his groundbreaking art which was not limited by genre or materials as well as for his critical writings that challenged traditional categories of art between the years of 1964-1973." He died at the age of 35 but his work has become reknowned in the art world.

For more information on Robert Smithson, see this website dedicated to him!
http://www.robertsmithson.com/index_.htm

Check out our Facebook for updates about our club!
https://www.facebook.com/utiesbowtie

Thanks and have a great week!
-The UTIES Committee

Fun Facts Friday and New Facebook Page!

Hi all!

This week's Fun Facts Friday features the UofT's Green Policies. In 2011, the St. George Campus achieved a waste diversion rate of 68.2% which was one of the highest of any North American institution.
Check our more information about waste reduction facts at U of T. http://sustainability.utoronto.ca/projects/ghg/waste.htm

Also, U of T received an A- for The College Sustainability Report Card for 2011 which is increased from a B in 2010.
Check out U of T's College Sustainability Report Card! http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2011/schools/university-of-toronto

We are also going to create a Facebook Group page where we will post events soon so that people can join our events. It may be difficult to be informed of them through our current page! We will post the link on our Blog!

Don't forget to "Like" our current Facebook page! https://www.facebook.com/utiesbowtie

Thanks and enjoy the weekend!
- The UTIES Committee

John Fekner's Album

Some of John Fekner's Album!



Mother Earth Will Survive (Your Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants)  - collaboration with Don Leicht







Indoor Installations 1982



My Ad Is No Ad 1980
"Fekner appropriates the front and back of billboards and highways signs as ‘alternative billboards’ with his subliminal messages." - according to Fekner's personal website



Toxic   Long Island Expressway, Queens, NY 1982
"Fekner drew attention to the proposed route of removing radioactive waste from the Shoreham nuclear power plant and Brookhaven laboratories on Long Island. Fekner stenciled signs and created murals at various locations in Nassau, Queens and Manhattan. A landmark ruling in the courts in February 1982 prohibited the trucking of nuclear waste through NYC and its suburbs." - according to his personal website


Question   Nassau County, NY 1982
"The concept of a time capsule was always an interest to Fekner. Influenced by the Westinghouse time capsules buried on September 23rd, 1938 and October 16th, 1965 at the Worlds Fair site in Queens, Fekner explored the concept on his 4U2C, Deer and Question Mark stencil projects. At new home or other job sites, Fekner stenciled messages/images for future generations on reinforced concrete pipes prior to their being buried in the ground by construction companies. For Fekner, “the concrete forms were like a minimalist sculpture….a found readymade” without him having to fabricate and adding a piece of Pop art to the environment." - according to his personal website

Artist of the Week Wednesday - John Fekner!

This week's "Artist of the Week Wednesday" is John Fekner!  According to Wikipedia, Fekner is "an innovative multimedia artist who created hundreds of environmental and conceptual outdoor works consisting of stenciled words, symbols, dates and icons spray painted in New York, Sweden, Canada, England and Germany in the 1970s and 1980s." One interesting artwork of his and Don Leicht's "Mother Earth Will Survive (Your Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants). Their interpretation is stated to reveal nature's determination and longevity through adaptation and survival, whether it’s growing through a crack of city concrete or the local communities’ own personal effort in revitalizing an abandoned lot into a sustainable and thriving garden."

If you would like more information about John Fekner, here is his website!
http://www.johnfekner.com/index.php

Follow our facebook page!
https://www.facebook.com/utiesbowtie

Check out some of his works on our blog!

Thanks and have a great week!
- The UTIES Committee

Fun Facts Friday

Hi all! Along with Artist of the Week Wednesdays, we are also creating Fun Facts Friday which will feature environmental fun facts!

This week's is about sustainable urban planning! According to Open Source Cities on Cities Tackling Probl...

ems with Small Solutions, "so-called micro-solutions which might mean relying on green infrastructure instead of a new water-treatment facility, or implementing car- and bicycle-sharing in place of a highway expansion are generally much cheaper and faster to implement. They have the added benefit of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. One micro-scale innovation that has taken hold in places as diverse as Portland, Ore., Denver, Malmo, Sweden, and Brooklyn is the eco-district, a neighborhood or section of a city that attempts to use less energy and produce less waste of all kinds. In eco-districts, property owners are encouraged to tap their joint purchasing and real estate power. In Washington, D.C., landowners have purchased solar panels to create local solar co-operatives."

To read more, here is their article! http://opensourcecities.tumblr.com/post/17365702707/block-by-block-cities-tackle-big-problems-with

UTIES' Upcoming Events for September and October

Hi all,

Throughout this semester, UTIES is going to have a few events in which we will feature documentaries, speakers, arts and crafts nights, and ecopoetry nights. We are also planning on collaborating with a few campus groups too! 

We would like to let you know of a few planned events that will be happening! We are still planning events for this semester but these are our finalized plans!
i) Bake/Art Sale in the week of September 24th
ii) Environmental Documentary/Mural/Arts and Crafts Night in the week of October 1st
iii) Arts Showcasing Night in late January

Bake/Art Sale
Our first bake/art sale will be happening the week of September 24th in which we will sell baked goods especially vegan and vegetarian baked goods and we will sell the UTIES committee's environmental art for very low prices. We feel that our art will raise awareness but simultaneously, our art will act as aesthetically pleasing decorations. If you would like to help out or bake anything with us, please email us at utiestudio@gmail.com! Thanks :)

Environmental Documentary/Mural/Arts and Crafts Night
Our first members' event will take place the week of October 1st. We are planning on having a documentary, creating a mural, and everyone making their own environmental art through various forms of materials that will be provided by us. We shall provide food but we also welcome food from members as long as there are proper ingredients lists for the food items. The event will be themed but we will let you know of the theme soon!

Arts Showcasing Night
We are going to have a major arts showcasing night that will include visual arts, graphic design, language arts, and vlogs, which will take place in late January. We welcome arts submissions from all across Toronto and Ontario from universities to local artists.

Once again, we will know of further dates for October and November soon!

Please contact us at utiestudio@gmail.com to send us photographs of your own art for us to display at our events and on our social media pages through Facebook, Twitter, and our Blog. Please feel free to contact us too about our major U of T gallery event which will happen in late January if you would like to display your artwork!

Follow us on Facebook for more updates about UTIES!
https://www.facebook.com/#!/utiesbowtie

Follow us on Twitter for daily updates!
http://twitter.com/utiestudio
 
Thanks again and we hope your first week back was fantastic!

- The UTIES Committee

Artist of the Week Wednesday - Stan Herd!

Hi all! We would to introduce "Artist of the Week Wednesdays"! Today we are featuring Stan Herd. Herd is an American crop artist who creates images on large areas of land, especially in Kansas. Raised on a farm, he originally used his tract

or to create his earlier images. Check out his facebook page! https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stan-Herd-International-Earthworks-Artist/331835563710

And check out our facebook for more news! 

https://www.facebook.com/utiesbowtie

And check out our Twitter for daily updates!
http://twitter.com/utiestudio

Stan Herd's Album

Some of Stan Herd's masterpieces! 


Cola Wars! Stan Herd's 10 acre field art work of a crushed Coke and Pepsi can was an 
"anti-commercial"and message about recycling set in field near Ottawa, Kansas.

 

Sunflower Field 

Butterfly Corn Maize

http://www.eudorareporter.com/this-week-in-eudora-history-july-8-july-14/

Earth Works

Andy Goldsworthy Album

Some Photographs From Andy Goldsworthy

Stacked sticks found branches Robin Hill Wood 1993

From Andy Goldsworthy's Digital Catalogue 1976 to 1986: 
http://www.goldsworthy.cc.gla.ac.uk/browse/


Rowan Leaves


Maple Leaves


Pebbles


Icicle Spit


Sticks

Welcome to UTIES

Hello everyone! We are UTIES, the University of Toronto International Environmental Studio, and we promote environmental awareness through different types of media.

We will post our event days and their themes for September and October shortly! Meetings will occur twice a month and you are welcome to submit your own art or come to join us for art/media appreciation.

We would like to showcase a renowned environmental artist each week and share a fun fact about them with all of you! This week, we would like to showcase Andy Goldsworthy! He focuses on the transience in life and nature as all of his art works are created from natural ecological artifacts. Once photographed, they are then taken apart and returned to nature. An example of his philosophy from his own website is this quote: "Movement, change, light growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work. I need the shock of touch, the resistance of place, materials and weather, the earth as my source. I want to get under the surface. When I work with a leaf, rock, stick, it is not just that material itself, it is an opening into the processes of life within and around it. When I leave it, these processes continue."

If you would like to see some of his photographs, an album of some of his works is posted on our blog! 

Fun fact: According to The Guardian, from the age of 13, Goldsworthy worked as a farm labourer. He has stated that the task of repetitively picking potatoes is like that of making his sculptures. For more of the article, read here! http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2007/mar/11/art.features3

If you would like more information about Goldsworthy, here is his personal website! http://www.ucblueash.edu/artcomm/web/w2005_2006/maria_Goldsworthy/TEST/index.html

Follow this link to find our Facebook page!

https://www.facebook.com/utiesbowtie

Follow this link to find our Twitter page!

https://twitter.com/utiestudio