SoFA exhibit teaches artists, attendees to live sustainably

Leah Gauthier is feeling vulnerable.

“We, as a generation, depend a lot upon industries to make our clothes, grow our food, build our homes,” she said. “Very few of us in our generation have the skills to do those very basic things.”

That is why Gauthier, a Bloomington resident and second-year art professor at Butler University, has decided to act upon her vulnerability through art. Her first project focuses on growing her own food.

Gauthier’s exhibit “Tending a Difficult Hope” opened at 7 p.m. Friday at the School of Fine Arts Gallery with a reception. The exhibit, which will be on display until Nov. 19, encompasses growing, cooking, preserving and eating organic food.

Gauthier said visitors can expect to see many jars of preserved food, pepper sculptures and a small healing garden, as well as other displays utilizing locally produced food. The public can also participate in free workshops.

“The first one is planting herb gardens out of recycled bottles, then making herb vinegars and drying herbs,” Gauthier said. “What I’m responding to in some ways is my anxiety over not having the skills to take care of myself.”

“Tending a Difficult Hope” focuses on sustainability, which relates to the College of Arts and Sciences’ Fall 2010 Themester “sustain•ability: Thriving on a Small Planet.”
Though she started this project by growing food, Gauthier said she hopes to learn skills such as knitting and weaving.

“I think becoming more self-sufficient will be called upon in the future,” she said. “It’s about living more sustainably.”

Sustainable art, a contemporary movement that reinforces environmentally conscientious practices, has swept through Bloomington. Next door to the SoFA Gallery, visitors to the IU Art Museum can see how people in other countries live sustainably through art.

On Sept. 25, the Art Museum opened “African Reinventions: Reused Materials in Popular Culture” as a collaboration with the Themester program. This exhibit displays objects from sub-Sarahan countries, with items ranging from recently-made to more than 20 years old.

In this exhibit, one can find toy airplanes made from soda cans, jewelry fashioned from safety pins and light bulbs used as oil lamps, among many other objects.

Diane Pelrine, associate director for curatorial services, said all items on display were acquired in Africa by IU’s African Studies faculty and students.

“What one can hope people get from the exhibit is not just readily apparent things like
recycling and reusing more but to look at the toys not just as toys, but as creativity,” Pelrine said.

Pygmalion’s Art Supplies, located on Grant Street, caters to sustainable artists.
“We have gotten many green products in,” Emil Reiling, an employee at Pygmalion’s said. “Most notably in regards to pencils and colored pencils.”

Reiling said there are new products that cater to the green movement, and he predicts to see a decrease in the use of paper in art.

“Pencils are produced in large amounts every year, huge amounts,” Reiling said. “We have woodless pencils, all graphite, that you can sharpen like regular ones, with a thin coating on the outside. This way you’re not using wood.”

As a sustainable artist, Gauthier said her biggest tool, rather than any pencil, is inspiration.

“I’m not a scientist. I can’t fix global warming,” she said. “But what I can do is offer inspiration. That’s where our power is, to inspire people who can do other things.”

‘TENDING A DIFFICULT HOPE’
WHEN Oct. 22 through Nov. 19
WHERE SoFA Gallery
MORE INFO Workshops are free and open to the public. For a schedule of workshops, visit www.indiana.edu/~sofa.