A STRANGE KIND OF LOVE
40th Year Commenorative Project
In
the fall of 1978, we felt compelled to leave the bulcolic, creative environs
of Yaddo, one of this country's most prestigious residency fellowship programs
just days after setting up our studios in what had been the writer Carson
McCullers' beloved Pine Tree Cottage to travel to the Niagara Falls area outside
Buffalo NY to meet with Lois Gibbs and the Homeowner's Association. On the
occason of the Thirtieth Anniversary of the environmental disaster known as
Love Canal - the poisoning of an American community that ushered in the beginning
of the modern environmental movement - artwork from our Love Canal portfolio
has been included in an important and timely exhibition, curated by Adolfo
Nodal, The Future of Nations: Citizen Artists Making Emphatic Arguments
at the 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, CA, which then traveled to
Tijuana and inaugurated La Casa Del Tunel Cultural Center. Simultaneous with
this exhibition, we launched the online worldwide Environmental Confession
Project below to commemorate the tragedy of Love Canal and the rising
hope and expectations regarding the growing awareness of our stewardship of
the Earth.
CoLabART is a creative entity borne of the thirty-year
collaboration between painter Lynn Small and photographer Dennis
Paul. Their group installation projects link spirituality to environment.
In 1978, they produced a landmark work titled: A Strange Kind of
Love, Love Canal: Blueprint for a Disaster. This seminal work in
the area of art and ecology was focused on Love Canal, the Upstate
New York environmental catastrophe that woke up America to the threat
of industrial ecological contamination and became the beginning
of the American environmental movement. This project revealed the
link between the origin of mysterious illnesses among residents
of Niagara Falls in the 1970s in Upstate New York, and toxic chemical
seepage. CoLabART’s work exhibits a lifelong commitment to
environmental justice and to otherwise helping the world with remarkable
gumshoe work.
Adolfo V.Nodal,
Curator -The Future of Nations – Part III
Citizen Artists - Making Emphatic
Arguments
18th Street Arts
Center, Santa Monica, California
July 12 - September 13, 2008
La Casa Del Tunel Art Center, Tijuana,
Mexico
– Inaugural Exhibition - Fall 2008
Our Tapestry
of Hopepoem
- one of the earliest pieces of interactive literature on the Internet 1994
- an ode to our individual responsiblity for the Earth's future well being
Project Invitational HandOut
Available in English + Spanish
Other Languages to Follow
2008
30th
Year Commenorative
Participated in the Orange County Interfaith Coalition for the Environment
(OC-ICE) Caring for Creation Conference
held at California's first LEED certified church complex
St. Mark Presbyterian Church, Newport Beach
The keynote speaker was environmentalist Bill McKibben
author of the pivotal work "The End of Nature" and scholar-in-residence
at Vermont's Middlebury College
Coordinated the development of this no fee, all accepted exhibition
moving each year to varied venues along the Hudson River Communities
as part of Pete Seeger's Clearwater clean-up movement
and designed/co-ordinated the installion for the first four annuals,
while training the volunteers
Also obtained support and prizes from Kodak, Pentax and others
as well as a pro bono 6-color poster from Morgan Press
