This pair of exhibitions explores the relationship between art and nature, creates awareness of our local natural resources, and promotes wetland and ecological conservation. The artists will create ephemeral sculptural artworks using natural materials in sites in the Leonora Curtin Wetland Preserve in La Cienega. Works will be on view at the preserve throughout the months of September and October. A companion exhibition of related works by the same artists will open in the Axle Contemporary mobile gallery on September 1 and continue through September 23. This is the third iteration of the Wilderness Acts Biennial, which began in 2014. Works in this exhibition include a small shelter constructed from "invasive" saplings, a day-long performance ritual of seed distribution, and beavers sculpted from mud.

The Santa Fe Botanical Garden's Leonora Curtin Wetland Preserve is a 35-acre nature preserve and home to a rare natural cienega (marsh) and hosts a bountiful diversity of plants and wildlife.

 

 

presented by Axle Contemporary and the Santa Fe Botanical Garden

 

 

• DIRECTIONS: The preserve is located on the I-25 West Frontage Road south of Santa Fe. From I-25 take Exit 271 for “La Cienega” and turn right onto West Frontage Road heading north. The parking lot entrance is 1½ miles north after turning onto West Frontage Road. From New Mexico State Road 599 (NM-599), turn south onto West Frontage Road heading toward the Downs at Santa Fe Race Track. The parking lot entrance is two miles south of the Downs at Santa Fe Race Track.

 

 

 

Descriptions of the work at the preserve

 

Susan Bruneni

Dragonflies, Reflections and Shadows

Bruneni has used the slash from the recent cutting in the preserve to sculpt enormous dragonflies. The dragonfly is one of the creatures that are rare in New Mexico’s dry desert climate, but live in abundance in the preserve’s remarkable and lush wetlands. Dragonflies appeared long before the dinosaurs and at one time reached a size equal to or larger than these sculptures, making them the dominant  presence in the air. Just as these enormous dragonflies hovered over a peaceful body of water just as our pond dwellers do today, we are reminded that there is always peace by a quiet pond, for us to cherish and renew our spiritual component.

 

Munson Hunt

Reclamation’ (small)  1,2 & 3

Hunt works with massive raw blocks of wood, shaping the material into primal, evocative forms, and often blackening the surface with charring or application of graphite and wax. The scale of Hunt’s work speaks of human presence and earthy visceral responses. Here, a pair of sculptures mark the path in the preserve and punctuate our human presence in the natural environment.

 

Susannah Abbey

Migrations: A Query

This project seeks to explore the current tension between “natives” and “immigrants” in our society, as expressed by the notion of native vs. invasive plants in our local landscape. You are invited inside the hut, where you may contribute ancestral stories, share the journeys that led you to this country, to this state, and to this park, or reflect on your sense of being and belonging where you are in your life. The structure is built of “invasive” tamarisk wood.

 

 

Kathleen McCloud with Tereza Sandrin North
Leave it to Beavers

McCloud lives in La Cieneguilla, near the preserve. She fell in love with the beavers that turned the lower reaches of the Santa Fe River into a vibrant wetlands between 2006 and 2014. The dissension they caused in the La Cienega Valley and their mysterious disappearance became her investigative art-making project at the Santa Fe Art Institute in 2016. The case is still open- 

long live beavers. Here, McCloud and her daughter have sculpted a beaver from the earth and mud of the pond, and a lodge from the slash from the human cutting of trees in the preserve.

 

Rick Yoshimoto & Chrissie Orr

UP/ROOTED

Rick and Chrissie developed the concept of UP/ROOTED in creative collaboration. This involved lots of conversations, walking the preserve, drawing, laughing and moving a lot of wood together. The needle is formed from the wood of one of the large Russian Olives (Elaeagnus Angustifolia) recently cut down in the preserve. Mounted on the stump from which is was born, the needle points to the sky and the clouds. The chipped remnants of the tree are used to create a nest form which holds the reconstructed stump in a protective rooted space. It is from this amended space that we can deepen our perception of and understanding of the connections with the earth, the sky, water, and the growth which surrounds us and of which we are all a part.

 

 

Gina Telcocci
Mudma

Telcocci uses wildcrafted materials to sculpt evocative biomorphic forms. Telcocci thinks of Mudma as a manifestation of a spirit of the holy dirt & water 

 

Frederick Spaulding

Bouquet

Spaulding continues his series of bound objects in this piece. Instead of his usual material of industrial and hand-built clay, the artist has used material gathered from the recent cutting of Russian Olive trees in the preserve. The resulting form, assembled by compressing the logs with straps, becomes a plinth, a pedestal, a vase, a sculpure, topped with greenery and flowers from the area.

 

 

Dana Chodzko

Lovers and Friends

Chodzko works in site-specific sculpture, frequently participating in residencies around the world. Her approach is to use the resources available on site wherever the projects take place. Here, she has scavenged limbs from the culled Russian Olive trees, carefully stripped, reassembled and integrated them back into the preserve. 

 

 

Cannupa Hanska Luger in collaboration with Ian Kuali’i

Tethered

Site Specific Land Acknowledgement, Healing Action,  and Indigenous Seed Dispersal

The artists engaged in a day-long action on the land on August 26, wearing regalia which obscured their sight. Kuali’i, tethered to a stake in the ground, walked in a circle and Luger follwed, using only sound and the texture of the land to orient himself. In the center of the circle, the artists left small unfired clay sculptures embedded with native seed, made with youth in Luger’s recent engagement at the O’Keefe Museum. The path that the artists walked is slightly visible from the picnic table under the nearby Cottonwood tree on the south loop trail. Documentation of the action by Dylan McLaughlin is on display in the Axle mobile gallery.

 

 

Paula Castillo

letters to trees and other selfs

Do you remember when you were a tree? Or a really big piece of dust?

letters to trees and other selfs, a curated show of poetry by Paula’s favorite tree, Terry Mulert, takes a look at the tenderly webbed relationship between humans and nature and helps us  imagine the fluidity that does indeed exist between human self and other selfs and systems in our original homeland.  The poems are hanging on trees along the main path.

 

 

 

Brian Fleetwood

Anemopsis

Fleetwood uses material and technical experimentation to create three-dimensional organic forms. Drawing from past experiences working in biology and interest in the connection between mind and body, Fleetwood uses this work to explore parallels between the way ideas and living organisms grow, spread, and evolve. His small clusters of sculptures along the main path in the preserve are abstracted from some of the botanical life in the area using textiles and foraged materials.