NAVIGATING ENVIRONMENT THROUGH ART
A creative exploration into sustainability
This is Calla Terra Studios.
Calla Terra is a community-focused, process-oriented, sustainability-driven eco arts endeavor with a mission to:
Raise awareness about climate change through the arts
Educate about the environment through writing, workshops, and public art
Promote respect for one’s environment
Foster environmental exploration for youth
Demonstrate that art is process-driven and accessible
Engage the community in public art
Trash. Reimagined.
Using trash as a creative medium, I incorporate reclaimed, recycled, natural, and found materials into my work. I collect items that our household consumes and would otherwise end up in a landfill — contact blister packs, silica gel beads, expired pills and vitamins, polybag sealing strips, bread bag clips, mesh netting from lemon and apple bags — and go at it with my acrylics and my palette knife on a hardboard panel.
Throw in some adhesive to lay dryer sheets or unused toilet paper under my paint, or glue shredded plastic milk jugs and berry containers over my paint. I’m mixing collected materials into my paint — unused kinetic sand from my sister’s kids’ artist studio or powder lemonade mix from our wedding reception. My studio is my laboratory and my artwork is about the creation process.
How I Got Here
There are two things in my life that have merged in the recent past, inspiring me to develop Calla Terra Studios — my childhood going to Wisconsin’s Northwoods, and my experience working in community-based arts, specifically developing and managing an environmental arts youth program at a small nonprofit in Milwaukee.
Where I’m Headed Now
I’ve felt a strong pull towards the recycled and natural materials and eco subject matter (a far cry from the art I’ve been creating for a decade). This urge began in small doses in 2020 and has gradually grown, as I find myself putting so much passion into this project and experimenting with reimagined trash in my art.
Follow the journey …
It all started with the environmental arts program I developed that used public arts to bring the community together and address local environmental issues through public art — in this case, it was a mosaic consisting of 15k plastic bottle caps donated by residents.
Visit my updates page for more on my creative process and inspiration, my work in the community, my reason for being here, and other things for you to ponder and contemplate in this critical time for climate optimism.
“Stubborn optimism needs to motivate you daily; you always need to bear in mind why you feel the future is worth fighting for.”
― Christiana Figueres, The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis