Student Environmen​tal Photograph​er of the Week - Laila Strazds!

Hi all, every week, UTIES will showcase a local environmental photographer's, artist's, or poet's profile as well as a few photos, paintings, or poems by them on our Facebook page and Blog! This week's  local photographer is Laila Strazds! 

I am a photographer. I document the world around me. I capture nature to conserve it, because with the camera, it’s the only way I seem to be limitless in expressing the need for change. I believe that expressing the issues that matter to you is vital – and that you have to express them in any way you can. Because although I may not be able to put my love for nature into words, or a song, or anything poetic, I can document the beauty of the world around me with my lenses.

 I’m majoring in Environmental Studies. I’ve always been interested in art and using various media. So of course, when I started photography, I fell in love. I started to capture the changing world around me, because any photographer or environmentalist will know, that whatever you see now may no longer be there tomorrow. So I am on a mission. A mission to see the world through my camera and capture everything beautiful around me. Because you never know when it will be gone.

"The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as our culture has defined it." - David Orr

I do not take photos for people to recognize me as a photographer, I take photos because I want to be a storyteller. I want people to see the world in the same way that I do – as beautiful.

 

Look up from your smart phone and notice nature. It surrounds us, and yet the only time we appreciate it, is when its in front of us in an exhibit, or on a screen.

Check out her photos on our Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/utiesbowtie

Thanks and have a great weekend! 
- The UTIES Committee

Charles Jencks Album

Snail and Snake Mound, The Garden of Cosmic Speculation, Dumfries Scotland, 1989 +

"Forty major areas, gardens, bridges, landforms, sculptures, terraces, fences and architectural works.  Covering thirty acres in the Borders area of Scotland, the garden uses nature to celebrate nature, both intellectually and through the senses, including the sense of humor.  A water cascade of steps recounts the story of the universe, a terrace shows the distortion of space and time caused by a black hole, a "Quark Walk" takes the visitor on a journey to the smallest building blocks of matter, and a series of landforms and lakes recall fractal geometry." - from his personal website

Jumping Bridge, The Garden of Cosmic Speculation, Dumfries Scotland, 1989 +

The Cascading Universe, The Garden of Cosmic Speculation, Dumfries Scotland, 1989 +

Black Hole Terrace, The Garden of Cosmic Speculation, Dumfries Scotland, 1989 +

Aerial View, September 2012, Photoraphy Copyright Graeme Peacock, Northumberlandia, Newcastle, England 2005-2012 (With Banks Group)

"Landform as gateway, abstraction of movement and human form.  Made of 1.5 million tonnes of earth, she will be 34 metres (112 feet) high and 400 metres (1,300 feet) long. The landform can be enjoyed in parts and within many different contexts including the distant landscape, the causeways, lakes, willow islands, and viewing pavilions." - from his personal website

Check out this site for more information on this! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9506204/Northumberlandia-giant-naked-goddess-carved-into-hillside.html 

Northumberlandia, Newcastle, England 2005-2012 (With Banks Group)

Goddess of the North, Northumberlandia, Newcastle, England 2005-2012 (With Banks Group)

Maggie's Highlands, Dividing Cells, Maggie's Centre, Inverness, Scotland, 2003-2005

"The theme of cells dividing, mitosis, is organised around the basic idea of life, the theme of healthy cell division and growth.  The idea of interconnected, living cells is conveyed by the visual and physical connections. Both the building, with its green copper, and the landforms with their green turf, share a related colour and a similar language of forms: similar angles, dimensions and vesica shape.  The Centre, designed by Page & Park architects, is to the south of the Raigmore Hospital." - from his personal website

Maggie's Highlands - Mound, Dividing Cells, Maggie's Centre, Inverness, Scotland, 2003-2005

Caro Solution Model, Ueda, Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1999-2002

Artist of the Week - Charles Jencks!

This week's Artist of the Week is Charles Jencks! According to his Wikipedia, "is an American architectural theorist, landscape architect and designer. His books on the history and criticism of Modernism and Postmodernism are widely read in architectural circles. Jencks now lives in Scotland where he designs landscape sculpture and writes on cosmogenic art."

The Garden of Cosmic Speculation, begun in 1988, was dedicated to Jencks' late wife Maggie Keswick. The garden has such a name because Jencks, Keswick, scientists, and their friends designed the garden based on natural and scientific processes. Jencks goal was to celebrate nature, but he also incorporated elements from the modern sciences into the design. The garden contains a species of plants that are pleasurable to the eye, as well as edible. With a ‘century of extraordinary discovery in biology’ like evolution and deoxyribonucleic acid also known as DNA, and cosmology, this has given birth to a new type of garden design [Cosmic]’. Preserving paths and the traditional beauty of the garden is still his concern, but Jencks enhances the cosmic landscape using new tools and artificial materials. Just as Japanese Zen gardens, Persian paradise gardens, the English and French Renaissance gardens were analogies of the universe, the design represents the cosmic and cultural evolution of the contemporary world. The garden is a microcosm - as one walks through the gardens they experience the universe in miniature. According to Jencks, gardens are also autobiographical because they reveal the happiest moments, the tragedies, and the truths of the owner and family.

"As he says, "To see the world in a Grain of Sand, the poetic insight of William Blake, is to find relationships between the big and small, science and spirituality, the universe and the landscape. This cosmic setting provides the narrative for my content-driven work, the writing and design. I explore metaphors that underlie both growing nature and the laws of nature, parallels that root us personally in the cosmos as firmly as a plant, even while our mind escapes this home.""

One of his creations is the "The Universe Cascade. It has 25 landings that mark the important shifts in cosmic history. Starting at the top, in the present day, and descending down, visitors are moving through 13 billion years of cosmic evolution. The steps finally disappear into the dark water below, which represents the mystery of the origin of the universe." according to the Modern Met Blog.

For more information on Charles Jencks, check out his personal website!  http://www.charlesjencks.com/

And check out this blog about him from the Met! http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/charles-jencks-mind-bending-landscape-architecture

Check our Facebook page for daily updates and new cool eco-art projects!

https://www.facebook.com/utiesbowtie

Thanks again and have a great week!

- The UTIES Committee

Local Environmen​tal Photograph​er of the Week - Diane Mascherin!

Hi all, every week, UTIES will showcase a local environmental photographer's, artist's, or poet's profile as well as a few photos, paintings, or poems by them on our Facebook page and Blog! This week's local photographer is Diane Mascherin!

Diane Mascherin is a designer, artist, poet and photographer and believes they all overlap in one way or another. She started writing poetry at a young age to help release those things inside that needed to find a way out. Art and photography soon followed. Diane loves walks in nature and taking photos of animals and trees. She also loves taking photos of abandoned buildings, old trains, tracks and worn out metal things. “I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.” John Burroughs The many layers of nature as with photos, art and words inspire her creative self. As each day moves along, everything changes within and without – as it should. 

If you’d like to see more of her photos or art, please visit her website: http://www.dkmdesign.ca/photography.html

Diane also hosts a poetry open stage, if you’d like more info, click on the following link: http://www.torontorenaissanceconspiracy.ca/ 

Check out her photos on our Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/utiesbowtie

Thanks and have a great week!
- The UTIES Committee

where are you? 

the lure of big-box stores

productively buying what I don’t need

regretfully spending what I don’t have

sinfully inserting

colourful plastic cards

into almost anything

 I’m behind the walls

of the latest Smart Centre

write to me if you can

xo

A motherless baby robin ended up in our driveway one night. We took care of it, fed it worms, and after a week it believed I was the mother. It was easy to become attached and feel light-hearted each time it fearlessly approached me. Sadly, the robin didn’t make it ...it brought to mind a poem by Mary Oliver, here is an excerpt from In Blackwater Woods: 

 “To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.”

Student Environmen​tal Photograph​er of the Week - Julianne Jakobek!

Hi all, every week, UTIES will showcase a student environmental photographer's, artist's, or poet's profile as well as a few photos, paintings, or poems by them on our Facebook page and Blog! This week's student photographer is Julianne Jakobek.

Here is her profile!

Hi, I'm Julianne! I am in first year studying humanities at Trinity College. My parents gave me my first camera when I was ten and ever since then it has always just been a hobby, I bring my camera almost everywhere I go. It has been through my family's encouragement and support that I have continued to pursue photography.
I really love the outdoors, in fact, almost all my photographs have been taken outside. I especially love taking photos of flowers and my dog, Bubba.

"I paint flowers, so they will not die." Frida Kahlo once said.

I have an identical twin sister who also likes to take photos! Not as much as me though!

Check out daily updates on our Facebook and cool eco-artworks!

https://www.facebook.com/utiesbowtie
Thanks and have a great week!
- The UTIES Committee