Proyecto Final: Putting Thanksgiving back into the Earth

My Earth Art project is based on a statement on archaeology and material studies of culture such as those referenced in the last chapter of Overlay. I was inspired by the natural organic form of foods made sacred by ancient civilizations that are described in relation to their artistic form and meaning in this chapter. For example, the European corn dolly (Lippard, 210) that signifies the form of woman and is constituted by the importance of wheat in their culture. Another example is that of food, women and ritual that appears many times in both the text and in ritualistic beliefs around the world. There is one particular line from this chapter in Lippard's text that struck me and helped me develop this project: One of Jody Pinto's works placed on a cliff was destroyed in a storm, and she created something new from it in light of its destruction. "The artist's pain at the destruction of her creation had been used for a new creation--a true metaphor for immortality" (Lippard, 200).

I decided to combine the themes of food, ritual, decay and rebirth derived from this chapter in order to create a project that would be telling of our culture and of archaeology and how our modern world may be interpreted 1000 years from now. I also decided to combine Earth Art and ecological art "with its emphasis on social concern, low profile and more sensitive attitudes toward the ecosystem" (Lippard, 229). I wanted to create something that would have a positive, though small, effect on the Earth to possibly counterract some other act of destruction my presence on this Earth may create. Thus, my project consists of three parts:

1) Art and Still life
2) Earth Art
3) Giving back to the Earth

Thanksgiving is an enormous part of American culture specifically, and I decided to use the organic remains fro cooking Thanksgiving dinner as my medium. First, I began with what the remains were before they became remains. I arranged the fruit and vegetables into a fruit tower that would be used to create art in a painting class: the traditional "still life" painting. This is a significant art form in our culture.

Over the course of cooking the Thanksgiving dinner, I collected the organic remains. The following day, while my own body was still digesting the feast from the night before, I went outside with my bowls of remains and created Earth Art. I created it on an open space of dirt, suggesting its growth and the place from where the remains were derived. I focused on the four directions on the form of the installment, which is an image used in many cultures and art forms, representing the cardinal directions in many cases, but in this case, in order to represent the four seasons. My lines were coordinated to North, South, East, and West, using a compass. There are examples of both in Lippard's text, page 214. Growth of fruits and vegetables are based on cycles and seasons, and it is significant in our culture and current situation that we are able to purchase summer vegetables and fruits during virtually every season of the year. The fact that tomatoes were incorporated into our Thanksgiving dinner in November is very representative of out globalized world and expectations of availability in our supermarkets year-round. This is why the tomato forms the center of my piece:
The next phase of my project is giving back to the Earth in the form of compost. Composting has been a significant part of my life--something I've done with my family since I was very young. We've ordered plenty of shipments of red worms--the best for making fertile dirt--in my day. This is a very nostalgic act for me, and for me, giving back to the Earth is of great importance. Nostalgia is another topic of Lippard's that has interested me. See post on "Nostalgia" in the beginning of my blog. The third phase of my project also seeks to make a statement about material studies and archaeology here organic materials are concerned. This part was inspired by works created by Michele Oka Doner in the 1960's. "Her interest in the ruins of prehistory lies in 'more than the art...it's how people lived, what they were like, and what remained after they left" (Lippard, 209). We measure the beginning of tool use in our species based on discoveries of stone tools. How long were they using sticks, an organic, biodegradable material, before then? How much insight into human past has been lost with the loss of organic materials and how those had played into their lives?


When I give these organic remains back to the Earth I am creating fertile dirt that will be spread somewhere next year. The interesting (and devastating) part of our culture and society now is the fact that everything we buy comes in plastic packages--something that will take hundreds of years to degrade. Though the organic materials will decompose, leaving hardly a trace of what was eating at our 2008 Thanksgiving feast, the plastic bags will be left behind as evidence of the existence of fruits and vegetables. We don't have such solid evidence of the civilizations past, and thus we see the difficulties that archaeologists have in interpreting a very scattered, mostly decomposed past.

I left my Earth Art outside for three days before I was forced to disassemble it (it was in my mom's yard at home over Thanksgiving break). On the third day, I went back out to see if there had been any changes to it. It looked just as it did before, probably due to the conservation abilities of the frigid cold air, except the tomato that formed the focal point of my piece was gone. You can see a trace of where the animal entered, as the asparagus tips have been moved around a bit, but the only item of interest was the tomato. I hope there is a racoon or deer out there somewhere having a pleasant feast.