ColumnAbout that heart.

Did you know? You’re the one I love.

I love you for loaning me the money even though you didn’t have it to loan.

I love you for lying under oath to protect a child.

I love you for standing by my side on the beach the day I really, finally left, holding just the silence with me.

I love you for needing my desperate hope in the aluminum boat in the pounding storm as much as I needed yours; I love you for making me an equal in that moment despite the decades in difference.

I love you for taking the blame because I was the good one and you were the bad one.

I love you for reading to me through every winter.

I love you for letting me make my own decisions – and mistakes. I love you for that more than you know.

I love you for year after year.

I love you for reminding me that I define who I am, and letting the present be enough, the memories their own.

I love you for the encyclopedia of me you retain in your memory, the intensity of your listening so strong I feel if this is possible, it is possible for us all.

I love you for letting me be.

I love you so much for the full heart behind the skittish glance.

I love you for wanting to marry me though you knew it wasn’t enough.

I love you for the four-minute voicemail demanding I believe in myself because you believe in me, a rapid-fire roller coaster of tears and force and defiance. And on the other end, me listening, in tears.

I love you for forgiving my lashing.

I love you for remembering me just the way I hope to be remembered.

I love you because you are fresh.

I love you for seeing the value in the adventure for its own sake; for never asking why.

I love you for so many things, and I worry you don’t know.

Most of all, I love you for breaking my heart.

“Why are you an artist?” a friend once asked me.

“Because art is for the broken ones who want to love the world.”

“Dear God, woman,” he said. “I’ve wanted to marry people for less than that.”

A broken heart is an open heart. And the truth is that we are all broken.

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life, exploring topics such as media, culture, sex, living, and anything else. Cheers and spellcheck!

Image: Franco Folini

ExclusiveArtist Alicia Escott’s intensely humane explorations of loss, longing, commercialism and ultimately, love.

“The best way I can express this is that I have lost enough hope to find a new hope.”

San Francisco-based artist Alicia Escott tells me this over coffee at The Summit, a popular cafe in the Mission District. We’re talking frankly, not philosophically, about pragmatic challenges of creativity and environmental issues, specifically, how one can retain any sort of optimism, much less focus, in the face of the enormous ecological challenges we face. (There have been six great “die offs”; we are poised for another.) “I heard an environmentalist being interviewed once,” she is saying. “The journalist asked him how he was okay with eating meat or some other destructive behavior. He answered, something like, ‘You know, you wake up in the morning, you take a shower then you walk around the corner to get coffee. It’s 9 a.m. and you have already walked over a mountain of skulls.’”

Escott is thoughtful, though not measured. She pauses for fresh lengths between questions.

“I function with a dichotomy that is extreme in a sense – I both think it’s perhaps ‘too late’ for humans but I also think about things from an evolutionary point of view,” she says. “Humans came out of great tumult. We are on the verge of another tumult. So I feel daily heartbreak; yet I also feel hope.”

Escott has already made a name for herself in environmental circles for her subtly captivating pieces that use disposable packaging as a medium for transcribing objects of both life and destruction. There is a bear on a bag seemingly expiring in undergrowth, a trout as litter in a stream (literally a fish out of water), and an atom bomb test on a to-go sushi container. (The last was too popular in a sense, says Escott. “They are so optically beautiful they trick you. That was a distraction from what I’m really wanting to talk about, so I did not make more.”)

The work, most notably that created on plastic sacks and film, is so fragile as to be temporary; the fleeting hand-drawn images are something like a compassionate catalog of the living past, or what will soon be our past. The art will not survive, and in fact, is not meant to – Escott has entire series expressly created to be recycled. But to describe her as an environmental artist or to view her work as somehow ironic is to miss the point.

“My approach is one of a thoughtful person, not only as an environmentalist, activist, or green advocate,” Escott says. “I am very hesitant about labels. I think we are making mistakes, and I have a lot of pain around these issues…but it’s really not for me to say. Us poisoning our oceans may return us, simply, to a primordial soup. Perhaps something better can come out of it. So my approach is holistic.”

There are eternal, contextually unsettling and shamanistic themes in Escott’s work. In a recently commenced series, she sends “Love Letters,” dated from the past, to acquaintances and friends alike. The letters include faded sepia and black and white photographs of simple scenes like children in yards and flocks of birds. The letters are poetic, eerie, profoundly haunting – and just slightly creepy. “It’s interesting playing with that tension,” she says with a mischievous smile. It’s clearly also enjoyable. My own Love Letter (“Love Letter to a Thick Billed Ground Dove. Extinct 1927.”) begins with “Last week I set the clock on my iPhone to December 18th, 1914″ and includes the following line:

“Then came rock n roll. More than anything I wish I could show you rock n roll, you would love it, I’m sure. And there was the telephone, and then answering machines and call waiting and then caller id, and now you can have that with you always. Honestly.

There would never need to be these distances anymore.”

My notebook contains this list of words I jotted down before meeting with Escott, and I share them with her.

Bereft

Buddhist

Longing

Acceptance

Human

Lonely

Heartbreak

Healing

I ask if the Buddhist tendency is intentional. I’m the first writer to do so, and she considers it for a long moment. “My work tracks the heart – attachment, loss.” There is an unmistakable healing quality to the approach. “I work from the perspective of the human condition and more so the condition of life,” she says.

Alicia Escott

“I used to talk more about the evils of plastic and was focused on didactic aims,” Escott says. “Now, I am talking about something more esoteric, I view plastic as [among other things] a metaphor for talking about the packaging of our lives. Ideas are virtualized. They are commoditized – they are Likes on Facebook.”

The works’ comment on contemporary culture’s materialism and collective isolation is a compassionate treatment. She says she deals with complex issues simply, but her creations are pure more than anything else. Hence the trouble with labels.

“Consciousness must occur on many layers; it’s not just green. It’s easy to get bogged down by categories – but we shouldn’t stay too long.”

Images courtesy Alicia Escott. Works featured are from the series Littered Drawings.

SeriesA mound of dead batteries is reborn as a colorful sea creature.

A battery powers everything from appliances to watches to your car, and when it’s out of juice, well, that’s the end of it. Nowhere else to go but the landfill.

Artist Michel de Broin had another idea. He gathered hundreds of old batteries before they landed at the recycle facility and made his Dead Star, a colorful creation that seems to come alive, again.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of a new art series at EcoSalon, The Heart of Art.

seriesIntricate watercolor paintings – small in size, big in imagination.

These tiny, detailed paintings by artist Wendy Davenport Whatley, invite us into an extraordinary and fanciful version of nature. At first glance, the drawings come across as scientific and literal, but most of the lively, green and growing things in Whatley’s watercolors are figments of her own imagination.

She offers these gems to us on small pieces of paper; and when I say small, I mean measurements as minute as 2.5 x 3.5 inches. Her largest paintings are 9 x 12 inches.

So if you’re searching for small and natural, yet other-worldly, your search is over. Find all of Whatley’s work, as well as items available to purchase, at her website and Etsy shop.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Kim Derby’s art series at EcoSalon, The Heart of Art. We heart art, and there’s nothing nicer than a daily dose to offer a moment of contemplation.

seriesA sculptural, formerly forever diamond crafted from salvaged wood.

Artist Ron van der Ende’s extraordinary depiction of the diamond given to Elizabeth Taylor by Richard Burton in 1969 is oddly apropos considering Taylor’s recent passing. Taylor was inarguably the epitome of “diamonds are a girl’s best friend.”

In 2009, van der Ende used reclaimed timber to build the bas-relief sculpture (image above), entitled Taylor-Burton after the real diamond. It appears three dimensional but actually lies almost flat on the wall. Van der Ende didn’t paint any of the found wood, but painstakingly placed each piece like a mosaic.

The actual 68 carat Taylor-Burton diamond probably inspired awe and envy in many women at that time while today, our evolving values and raised consciousness might just provoke in us a sense of disdain for such excess. For example, the Taylor-Burton diamond, mined in South Africa, is considered conflict rather than forever.

To wit, on the back of van der Ende’s sculpture he pasted an image of a South African diamond mine worker (image below).

A sobering contrast to the high profile jewelry boutique you find the mined rocks in.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Kim Derby’s new art series at EcoSalon, The Heart of Art. We heart art, and there’s nothing nicer than a midday dose to offer a moment of contemplation.

Charlotta Ward is an artist; you can see it in the way she finesses the words and images on her blog as though she is delicately finessing the last details of an intricate painting. Everything at Space for Inspiration is thoughtful and gorgeous with a layer of spontaneity that always excites my palate. Brace yourself to meet a design blog that knows no restrictions of style and the only inhibition is stunning aesthetic, whether served modern, Scandinavian, industrial, mid-century, etc. You will discover homes with pallid palettes lounging next to vivid bohemian interiors. Variety is the spice of life and the secret of Space for Inspiration.

I have set up a delicious little five course meal to tease your senses. Each morsel comes garnished with a link leading to the full entrée (tour) with a side dish of Charlotta’s words (and sources) at Space for Inspiration. Bon appetit!

The scintillating amuse-bouche (above) is a taste of a Barcelona home, “fused together with the cliff it is built on.”

The next course includes a plate of leafy greens from Spain.

This tropical hotel, “tucked away in the lush and authentic Bahian fishing village of Trancoso, Brazil,” will cleanse your palate (and refresh your soul).

A converted farmhouse from South Africa will serve as the main attraction, simple in color and texture – but complex in effect. (Don’t miss the gorgeous, “guest room in the converted barn,” with a gable headboard that will romance you!)

For dessert, a rich three-part sequence of Swedish bliss, architectural structure from a Swedish ski resort and a living room in Stockholm trimmed with a vibrant taste of Denmark.

You can pop over and thank Charlotta Ward for designing such a beautiful menu. By the way, Mrs. Ward really is an artist (on many levels) who creates whimsical paintings for wee ones.

(All images and quotations from Space For Inspiration.)

I’ve rarely been accused of being ‘at a loss for words,’ except when it comes to small talk. Inane chit-chat serves a purpose, I understand, but I’d rather just hear the silence in between. Call me anti-social, aloof or just plain boring, but my shutting up leaves plenty of room for observing, which has made me a better writer. So be it.

Many things are better in black and white than spoken out loud. For one, they last longer. A message worthy of repetition should stay around for a while so it will spread and grow.

Literally.

In this case, the black and white is green as in growing vegetation. The artist, Anna Garforth, creates her messages with moss growing out of concrete walls or leaves constructed together on fences. She’s been called “urban land artist, guerrilla gardener and green graffiti extraordinaire.” All of them seem to fit fabulously.

“My interest in integrating my creative practice with urban ecology and sustainability has led me into a world of moss collecting, wild city foraging and hunting down all the undomesticated areas of our urban forest.”

The new eco-nomics moss art (images above) was commissioned by a magazine to introduce an article about “going green and being more economical.” Garforth often collaborates with other artists or organizations that share her desire to communicate creatively and affect change both environmentally and socially.

“I feel the best place for some of my creations is in the public eye. I aim for my work to spark intrigue and questioning as it melds into our transitory daily landscape. My work needs to make an immediate impact given its ephemeral nature. I don’t wish to preserve it, it lives, it dies, and new growth ensues.”

And then there are her leaves. This typography (image above) was also site specific and completely sustainable. Garforth used thorns and fallen leaves (image below) to construct the words RETHINK and THINK.

“This piece was located in front of two main resources we heavily depend upon, gas and water. The word communicates a need to rethink about what we consume and how we consume it.”

For another outdoor piece, Gartforth created the word CHANGE in leaf typography. And in yet another, she spelled Nourish with moss (image below).

Look up nourish in the diction…I mean, Google “nourish definition” and it reads: “To provide with the substances necessary for growth, health and good condition. From Latin nutrire, ‘feed, cherish’. To provide for, sustain, encourage, nurture, cultivate, strengthen, enrich.”

Nourish, indeed.

Images via artist’s website

Before you accuse me of being a tad too fond of a certain seat-like piece of furniture, let me explain. This chair isn’t exactly that, and although it looks and acts like one, I swear”¦it’s not really a chair.

At least I wouldn’t want to sit on it. Ouch.

Tokujin Yoshioka, the designer of Venus – natural crystal chair, probably doesn’t want me to, either. Rather, he’d like us to think about it – along with its relationship to technology, design and the power of nature.

As part of an exhibition in Japan that he directed, Yoshioka “grew” his Venus natural crystal chairs in large aquariums filled with a mineral solution and the vibrations of classical music that he played directly into the tanks.

Natural yet manipulated by music and man, Venus -¦makes its appearance over time as if the goddess herself gradually emerges from water. This [chair], which is formed using the laws of nature and embodies a beauty born of coincidence, pushes the boundaries of creativity.”

The words of the artist are as beautiful as his work. He definitely has me thinking – I hope he has you thinking too.

- via Inhabitat

Yoshioka is a 40-year old Japanese conceptual artist/designer extraordinaire who pushes the envelope of anything he gets his hands on. His installations have won awards. He has collaborated with big name designers. Newsweek selected him as one of “100 Japanese respected by the world”. See more of what he does at his website.

I’ve always shied away from art that’s hidden away in cold galleries. Rather, I want to see art that is spontaneous, context-driven and made by the imaginations of people like you and me. Learning To Love You More is a website that’s done just that.

Artists Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher have posted open-ended artistic assignments online and anybody can choose one (or more), do the work and post their outcome online.

Paintings, photographs, poetry, video – all forms of media are there, and the results have come from everyone, not just professional artists. Interestingly enough, this people-driven art has garnered the interest of a wide variety of display centers for exhibitions worldwide.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of examples posted throughout the website, but here are some that stood out for me. Check out the site and let me know which ones spoke to you.

Feel the News
(shown above)

Write Your Life Story in Less Than a Day

Record the Sound That Is Keeping You Awake
Make a Field Guide to Your Yard

Make an Educational Public Plaque

Recreate an Object from Someone’s Past

AlyssA Angelica James is on a roll. An “Ëœecotainment’ pioneer, she has been doing stand-up comedy and making people laugh about their bad habits towards the environment for a few years now.

A self confessed treehugger, AlyssA finds comedy a great way of getting her message across about how we all need to look after the environment. People at the shows might not realize it at the time but amongst all the laughter, she is also educating them about green issues.

AlyssA, however, is not just a comedian.

She is also an amazing singer-songwriter who has just released an album called Within that’s making waves among environmentalists and music lovers.

The music is mellow – a mixture of jazz, gospel, pop, and folk – but the lyrics are tough and thought provoking. The track “ËœPure and Holy’, for example, might have a light toe tapping beat but there’s nothing light about its topic – the impact of government and big business on the environment.

Take a listen. You’ll see what I mean.