November 11th; after a warm reunion at Lynn Morton’s place in Tucson, Mel Dominquez, Bently Spang, and I are driving nearly a year to the day later in John Newman’s van loaded with food supplies north to Oracle and Biosphere 2. We arrive at 5:30 on a beautiful slightly cool evening and see Biosphere 2 with the glow of the sun’s last light illuminating the other worldly glass structure beyond the now familiar casitas where we will stay for the next week. Ellen and Phillipe are also there and we begin unloading our supplies.
It’s amazing to be back among friends, fellow artists, in this extraordinary place embarking on a project that has been in the making for 6 months. Morgan Schwartz will join us on Tuesday. We also nervously await the arrival of Mary Ellen Strom’s work and support material – sadly, she is not able to be with us. We hear it’s arrived, or about to, but where.
It’s Monday and we are seeing for the first time the spaces where we will install our projects. I feel uncertainty as to whether a site different from one first chosen for my installation will work, but after a short period of assessment the new space looks like it will work and shortly after actually getting to work, all seems good, almost fortuitous.
The week goes relatively smoothly (there are always glitches) and with cooperative indeed collaborative work on everyone’s part Saturday arrives and an impressive show by six artist’s emerged as a voice joining with the researchers from The Institute of the Environment in raising awareness of climate change. Joaquin Ruiz director of Biosphere 2 spoke eloquently about the close relationship between art and scientific research and we are all feeling enormously proud of our participation in this historic moment.
So much credit goes to Ellen Skotheim, her vision and incredible dedication to not only making this show happen, but also to her passionate work on behalf the region’s environment. John Newman’s resourcefulness and extraordinary problem solving abilities, even temper and sense of humor kept things on schedule and Phillipe kept our crankiness at bay with his culinary wizardry and reminded us there is important work to be done developing regional food resources.
Fritz Buehner
12.9.2012