Essential Questions: 1. How does energy production impact* place? 2. How does your sense of place**, environmental ethic, and understanding of our energy needs influence your perception and decisions regarding energy production? *In defining “impact” you can think about it in terms of the impact on the culture, the health of individuals, the land, the economy, technology and scientific progress, future generations, and/or the sustainability of the resources of a specific location or the planet as a whole. **“Sense of Place” is a concept that describes the quality of people’s relationship with a place. However, you will develop a definition of sense of place that most resonates with you. Some questions you may consider include: Does sense of place include a connection to the natural world separate from people? Does it include people? Does it include a local sense of place or global? Do you define your sense of place as one of economic positioning, social class, geographic location, and/or connection to community and people? Do you define it as very particular spot that holds special meaning to you? Does your connection to land shape your identity? Do you feel rootless or disconnected from community and/or place? Link to Chemistry Energy and Place project reflection can be found here: |
Artist Statement:
My art piece expresses my very specific and intense love for clouds and their various states, textures, sizes, and colors. I want to imply different levels of emotions within the layers of color and abundance of the clouds themselves. The layers actually coincide with the general mood of the main character within my short story. The story starts with the Geo talking about the earth and the sagebrush. As you can see, there are no clouds in the first layer, and there's a general smoginess to the horizon. Then, as we start to go up, there are more and more clouds. This is the building of the climax. Then, there's the storm (or the climax) which is the darkest and stormiest part of the piece. The climax mellows out, and Geo finally comes to accept his death and illness. This is the golden, sunset part of the picture. Then, as the story comes to an end, the colors come to a calm, beautiful purple that ends in finality. I decided to do different layers and photos of clouds in the same piece because I wanted to show the varying aesthetic beauty that clouds can present. I took all of these photos myself.
The concept surrounding the creation of this piece was really simple. Basically I used photoshop to cut and paste certain parts of photos I had taken of clouds, and pasted them into a single document. I wanted to follow a color gradient as well as a gradient in how many clouds there were in each level. The cohesiveness is found within the two gradients, and the the refinement is found within the simplicity of the process and concept used to create it. There was no complex symbolism within the piece, making it appeal mostly to the beauty and transience of the clouds themselves, which partly explains why the sky and the clouds are my sense of place.
I find endless excitement and inspiration from looking at the sky. There are so many moods, ambiances, and beauty suspended within a sunset, sunrise, storm, etc. I've had a general lack of inspiration lately with my visual pieces in school. I think it might have been because I was trying to incorporate too much symbolism and meaning into the piece and not concentrating on the aesthetic/emotional feel of the pieces as much. I was watching a youtube video the Maria Abramovic and Uwe Laysiepen, and I found their art to be incredibly fascinating. I then watched an interview by her and became even more entranced by her work and her philosophy surrounding art, (especially on her concept of what an artist is). So I'm thanking Maria Abramovic, because I totally tried to channel her intensity and dedication to her art into my piece. It's a strange connection, I know, but it worked and I totally turned out to have a final piece that I felt was refined, beautiful, and complete.
The concept surrounding the creation of this piece was really simple. Basically I used photoshop to cut and paste certain parts of photos I had taken of clouds, and pasted them into a single document. I wanted to follow a color gradient as well as a gradient in how many clouds there were in each level. The cohesiveness is found within the two gradients, and the the refinement is found within the simplicity of the process and concept used to create it. There was no complex symbolism within the piece, making it appeal mostly to the beauty and transience of the clouds themselves, which partly explains why the sky and the clouds are my sense of place.
I find endless excitement and inspiration from looking at the sky. There are so many moods, ambiances, and beauty suspended within a sunset, sunrise, storm, etc. I've had a general lack of inspiration lately with my visual pieces in school. I think it might have been because I was trying to incorporate too much symbolism and meaning into the piece and not concentrating on the aesthetic/emotional feel of the pieces as much. I was watching a youtube video the Maria Abramovic and Uwe Laysiepen, and I found their art to be incredibly fascinating. I then watched an interview by her and became even more entranced by her work and her philosophy surrounding art, (especially on her concept of what an artist is). So I'm thanking Maria Abramovic, because I totally tried to channel her intensity and dedication to her art into my piece. It's a strange connection, I know, but it worked and I totally turned out to have a final piece that I felt was refined, beautiful, and complete.
Project Reflection
Preparation within this project included doing the following things:
As a class, we first learned about various Environmental Ethics such as Conservationism, Preservationism, NIMBY-ism, Environmental Justice etc. Ashley provided ample examples of different ethics through literature by Aldo Leopold and Edward Abbey. We were prompted to think hard about what our personal environmental ethics may involve, and how does that ethic come to relate with (or could relate with) your sense of place. We then concentrated on Nuclear Power, specifically as an example, and how the industry effects communities who mine the uranium and the environmental impacts surrounding the production of nuclear energy. We weighed pro's and con's, and created our own town council to discuss whether a particular town (Naturita, Colorado) should reopen itself to uranium mining once again. We were separated into different groups, and argued from different perspectives. Guest speakers came in for both Humanities and Chemistry classes. It was interesting because each speaker had their own opinion on what energy is, where we should get it from, and how it should be consumed. After concentrating on nuclear power, we then looked at artists reactions to how energy has environmental impacts on our earth. This was to give us an idea as to how we should go about our visual piece and it definitely showed us how to express our environmental ethic and views from a more pathos, emotional, artistic side. As we prepared to write our final essay, we started to write in a journal as an attempt to reflect on what our personal sense of place is, or what we want it to be. The essay itself could be one of three things; a poem, a short story, or an actual essay. A personal nature writing essay is something that is comprised of "show vs tell" details of your sense of place, and what sort of connection you have to the place.
Finding my sense of place was actually fairly easy. I wanted to do something abstract and a little different, and when i thought about a place that comforts me, the clouds immediately came to mind. What was more difficult was finding an environmental ethic that I stood strongly by. In the end, I chose environmental justice because I was able to deeply connect to the ethics and injustice behind it. The process of writing in my journal was really fun. I went to a few places that I really enjoyed and had the ability to sit down and really contemplate on how I wanted to express my love for that place through my writing. When posed with the question of how I've grown as a person, I'm going to have to say that I've grown the most in the sense of how grateful I am for growing up in the place I do. I literally live in such a gorgeous, untouched place. There are no natural resource industries near Durango, and I can literally walk out my front door, up the street, and into a beautiful mountain park. So the appreciation for the beauty around me was definitely heightened in awareness. I think that form of gratitude is what grew the most inside of me. This was thanks to the research that we did, and also the journal that I wrote in.
I actually like my visual piece more than my short story, but I also really liked my short story as well. I guess I've been so writing-oriented this year, it was a great release to do a visual of this magnitude, (a personal magnitude that is), I'm proud of my visual piece because there was such a personal gratification to finishing it and seeing the end result turn out so good. The color is phenomenal, and there's this really convoluted message within the two gradients. I'm proud of it's visual simplicity. There is no complicated symbolism behind the visual, which represents how un-complicated my relationship is with the sky as well.
I enjoyed the Humanities side of the project. As a joint project, they did compliment each other, but strictly in topic. There was no cross-over in content though, which disappointed me a little bit. I think there could be a little bit more collaboration in vision between the two teachers. The chemistry part was not very interesting to me personally. The science was fascinating in a sense, and the implications behind it were incredibly substantial as well. But I was not very interested and engaged in the application of those implications. I did love the prompts behind both projects. They're so incredibly relevant to what's happening today, and decisions we as a generation will have to make in the future.
As a class, we first learned about various Environmental Ethics such as Conservationism, Preservationism, NIMBY-ism, Environmental Justice etc. Ashley provided ample examples of different ethics through literature by Aldo Leopold and Edward Abbey. We were prompted to think hard about what our personal environmental ethics may involve, and how does that ethic come to relate with (or could relate with) your sense of place. We then concentrated on Nuclear Power, specifically as an example, and how the industry effects communities who mine the uranium and the environmental impacts surrounding the production of nuclear energy. We weighed pro's and con's, and created our own town council to discuss whether a particular town (Naturita, Colorado) should reopen itself to uranium mining once again. We were separated into different groups, and argued from different perspectives. Guest speakers came in for both Humanities and Chemistry classes. It was interesting because each speaker had their own opinion on what energy is, where we should get it from, and how it should be consumed. After concentrating on nuclear power, we then looked at artists reactions to how energy has environmental impacts on our earth. This was to give us an idea as to how we should go about our visual piece and it definitely showed us how to express our environmental ethic and views from a more pathos, emotional, artistic side. As we prepared to write our final essay, we started to write in a journal as an attempt to reflect on what our personal sense of place is, or what we want it to be. The essay itself could be one of three things; a poem, a short story, or an actual essay. A personal nature writing essay is something that is comprised of "show vs tell" details of your sense of place, and what sort of connection you have to the place.
Finding my sense of place was actually fairly easy. I wanted to do something abstract and a little different, and when i thought about a place that comforts me, the clouds immediately came to mind. What was more difficult was finding an environmental ethic that I stood strongly by. In the end, I chose environmental justice because I was able to deeply connect to the ethics and injustice behind it. The process of writing in my journal was really fun. I went to a few places that I really enjoyed and had the ability to sit down and really contemplate on how I wanted to express my love for that place through my writing. When posed with the question of how I've grown as a person, I'm going to have to say that I've grown the most in the sense of how grateful I am for growing up in the place I do. I literally live in such a gorgeous, untouched place. There are no natural resource industries near Durango, and I can literally walk out my front door, up the street, and into a beautiful mountain park. So the appreciation for the beauty around me was definitely heightened in awareness. I think that form of gratitude is what grew the most inside of me. This was thanks to the research that we did, and also the journal that I wrote in.
I actually like my visual piece more than my short story, but I also really liked my short story as well. I guess I've been so writing-oriented this year, it was a great release to do a visual of this magnitude, (a personal magnitude that is), I'm proud of my visual piece because there was such a personal gratification to finishing it and seeing the end result turn out so good. The color is phenomenal, and there's this really convoluted message within the two gradients. I'm proud of it's visual simplicity. There is no complicated symbolism behind the visual, which represents how un-complicated my relationship is with the sky as well.
I enjoyed the Humanities side of the project. As a joint project, they did compliment each other, but strictly in topic. There was no cross-over in content though, which disappointed me a little bit. I think there could be a little bit more collaboration in vision between the two teachers. The chemistry part was not very interesting to me personally. The science was fascinating in a sense, and the implications behind it were incredibly substantial as well. But I was not very interested and engaged in the application of those implications. I did love the prompts behind both projects. They're so incredibly relevant to what's happening today, and decisions we as a generation will have to make in the future.