Can Land Be Developed?

It was informal but rewarding to have two evenings with two fine scientists from Oklahoma. The Scientist Talks were led by State Soil Scientist Steve Alspach and Oral Roberts University Biology Professor Dr. Hal C. Reed. What a shame only a select (our designation) handful people participated in  the two lectures.

Yes,  Soil Health management strategies can ensure the Dust Bowl doesn't happen again; and yes, the insect societies sustain our own communities. Our livelihoods are based on the soil, the land, the water, and the environment. The soil needs to be enriched for generations to harvest food, the flowers need to grow for untold insect species to pollinate; the trees need to grow to improve the air quality; and the water needs to flow to everywhere for a sustainable environment. The key here is that we humans have to enrich the soil, grow flowers, plant trees, distribute water, and support life. Can land continue to be developed? My answer is: NO. Land can neither be developed nor explored for profit until we learn how to put back what we have taken.

I declare my yard is the" Pollinator Sanctuary" and welcome ants, worms, and wasps as well. I will choose the ground cover that can improve the soil quality over a visually "green" lawn (Can I burn my front lawn for a healthier and more diverse piece of land?). The answer my friend, is in the land.

Oklahoma State Soil Scientist Steve Alspach

ORU Biology Professor Dr. Hal Reed

100 Meridian National Monument

Antelope Hills, Oklahoma

Welcome to James' and Yiren's 100 meridian land walk! This is an introduction to a special Oklahoma/Texas border. We are attempting to establish this border as a National Monument and become the start of a great uninterrupted natural path around the world called the Greenbelt Meridian. This border lies along the 100th Meridian West and would appear less than perfect for a "Greenbelt" Meridian, yet it is in reality tailor made for our project. We are dedicated to creating a corridor that has no roads, no fences, no man's and no shoes land. The land is returned to the native land, before the landrun, before the treaties, before the purchases, and before the colonization. It will be kept as a symbol of hope for the Earth, preserved forever, into the future.

Please sign the petition through the following link and be one of the GBM real troopers. Thank you.

Designate the 100th Meridian at the Oklahoma and Texas border as a National Monument and the first section of a global Greenbelt Meridian.
Please sign the petition at:
tinyurl.com/greenbeltmeridian

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http://100meridianwalker.blogspot.com/

Life along the 100th Meridian

Rrichard Long Sculptures

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Greenbelt Meridian Project

James and I physically started our Greenbelt Meridian Project campaign nine months ago with nothing except a vision. Thanks everyone who helped along the way and who showed up for the opening reception ( it takes a great effort to walk in such hot weather). We wish we could spent time with everyone at the opening to express our gratitude.  Share with you here is our first GBM introduction to the public.

Greenbelt Meridian (2 minutes and 17 seconds)
wildlifes-need-to-roam

The Greenbelt Meridian light was created by Geoffrey Hicks.

It Is The Same As It Ever Was

a moth 

In the course of two years while we have been planning this exhibition, many things have happened for better and for the worse in our private lives and in the world. We have learned of so many organizations and individuals  that are making a great effort  to discover new territories in art, science, and global policies. Regrettably though, more animals have continued to be slaughtered for no acceptable reason, more rainforest cut down; more rivers and lands compromised by radiation and runoff chemical, and more humans are born and more killed. Is the notion half for nature and half for human an impossible dream? or unnecessary?

Life is linear, but the land, the earth,  nature, the environment, the universe,are all infinite. An unexpected twist happened when we were preparing for this exhibition: We thought of the stages of death quite a lot. " It is the same as it ever was..." (from All is Well by Henry Scott Holland, 1847-1918)

The opening of the Greenbelt Meridian fell on July 18th, the birthday for Maria Gallagher, my mother-in-law, whose life is being taken away by a terrible dementia. Maria hasn't  been able to enjoy the world around her for more than two years. James and Yiren are dedicating this exhibition to her love of life and  her inspiring will to survive.

It begins right here!

The Greenbelt Meridian's initiative is to return a complete circle of land back to nature, free of all human interference, therefore we think it is necessary to mention American Land Art during the 70s, because the ideas of Earthwork, conceptual art, and installation art have been an underlying influences (at least in spirit) for our direction in working large scale, inside and outside the gallery! Earth Art is an art movement and an art form that is created in nature. Large scale structures and sculptures are not placed in landscape, rather land is in various ways the subject and means of creation. In 2012, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles presented "Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974", the first large-scale, historical-thematic exhibition to deal broadly with land art. Many of the earth works have eroded with time and only exists in photos, video, or paper documents. http://moca.org/landart/

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The notion of maximum effort and minimum impact is totally against human progress and value, and that is our conscience toward nature. We appreciate Belgian-born, Mexico-based artist Francis Alys' social practice on earth and share with you one of his early projects here.

Francis Alys, The Loop Tijuana-San Diego 1997

In order to go from Tijuana to San Diego without crossing the Mexico/United States border. I followed a perpendicular route away from the fence and circumnavigated the globe, heading 67* south East, North East and South East again until I reached my departure point. The project remained free and clear of all critical implications beyond the physical displacement of the artist.  --Alys

Greenbelt Meridian Footbook

We put some of the stories and visions that inspired us into coloring pages and this is a companion book to Greenbelt Meridian Coloring Book that has never published.

Greenbelt Meridian Footbook

A Passage

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through.  For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.    -- Matthew 7:13

A narrow gate

A bridge to other field


A divided house makes space for the greenbelt meridian to pass through.

All the way through  BOK parking lot and beyond

Divided House

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field, I'll meet you there

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

ideas, language, even the phrase "each other" doesn't make any sense.

Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi -13th century

Circles of Life

My aunt, from my mom’s side (her oldest sister), who went to Japan, studied nursing and worked as a midwife on the island of Taiwan during the WWII. At age 25 she  died from tuberculosis.  A few years later, penicillin arrived on the island and consequently many lives were saved. After I learned that Penicillin owes much to the cantaloupe, I have decided to start a series of circles of land with this fruit and pondering about my aunt’s brilliant life cut short.  – Yiren Gallagher

Half of the cantaloupe as a bowl for offering and for begging as well.

Homunculus

Melons on Terraces

Greenbelt Meridian ceramic cantaloupes at AHHA garden terraces

The ghost of the Incas's farming achievements still shadows the Andes. The remnants of ancient terraces in Machu Picchu appear as lines of green on the mountains. Inspired by recent archaeological research, the people of Andes are rebuilding terraces and irrigation systems and reclaiming traditional crops and methods of planting. They do this because Incan agricultural techniques are more productive and more efficient in terms of water use.

Farming Like the Incas

Up With Trees Planting a Food Forest Along Tisdale Parkway

Red Soil

Soils are one of our most important natural resources and also are important for the beauty their many colors add to our landscape.  Soil colors serve as pigments in bricks, pottery, and artwork.  The color and texture of soil painting is fascinating and a creative opportunity we take examples from paleo cave painting to religious sand painting references.

James Gallagher pulled the soil down along the line design

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Port Silt Loam was named the official state soil April 1, 1987. It is found in 33 of the 77 counties. Soil are often named after an early pioneer, town, county,community or stream in the vicinity where they are found. The name "Port" comes from the small community of Port located in Washita County, Oklahoma. The name "silt loam" is the texture of the topsoil. this texture consists mostly of silt size particles(.05 to .002 mm), and when the moist soil is rubbed between the thumb and forefinger, it is loamy to the feel, thus the term silt loam. When Port soil are undisturbed, they produce native vegetation including tall grasses with an over story of pecan, walnut, bur oak, and cottonwood trees.

soil samples prepared by the Oklahoma State University Soil Lab

Dirt is not Soil! Dirt is the basic mineral component of soil. It is a group of
runaways. Therefore, the stuff on the wheel or under your shoe is dirt.   

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https://www.soils.org/

Greenbelt Meridian Agriculture

trompe l'oeil cantaloupes on fruits stand in a supermarket 

Art imitates life

Roadrunner engraving courtesy of  the Fab Lab

ceramic oranges and cantaloupes

Watch the making of a ceramic cantaloupe step by step:

Greenbelt Meridian Cantaloupe  (22 seconds)

GBM Cantaloupes (10 seconds)

Ripple

The mural  "Ripple" based on a James Gallagher's watercolor was inspired by the movement and sounds of invisible animals on the edge of a wooded darkness and the subtle and ubiquitous effects of man on the world around him.. It represents a small section close to a Greenbelt Meridian's “no shoes, no fences, no roads, no buildings, no man’s land” corridor in nature. For future travellers, it might be a walkway, a trail, or a river for you to float your boat. However beautiful it seems, this painting does not represent the Greenbelt Meridian. There will be many who ask why we need a Greenbelt Meridian with all the inconvenience it will bring to our life. Look at all the beautiful nature that surrounds us! What will exist here in 5 thousand years?

A Land Where I come From, watercolor by James Gallagher

A blackbird ambles through a yard like a child navigating its way through a tall field of corn. With wide trails, between strait growing leaves of grass, the soil preserves many possibilities for food today.     

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There is a road, no simple highway,

Between the dawn and the dark of night,

And if you go no one may follow,

That path is for your steps alone.

Ripple in still water,

When there is no pebble tossed,

Nor wind to blow.

(Excerpt from the Ripple lyric by Grateful Dead)

The Sword of Damocles

"That sword! That sword!" cried Damocles. He was so badly frightened that he dared not move. "Yes," said Dionysius, "I know there is a sword above your head" 

"Damocles" by Richard Westall - own photograph of painting, Ackland Museum, 

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America.

Hanging above, a handcrafted bow by Darren Dirksen; center and on the floor, installation by James Gallagher. In the name of progress, we have come to live like a royalty; own everything and take more and more from the nature. Are we, Human Beings, going to continue on into the future without noticing the sword of Damocles hangs directly over our handiwork?

Greenbelt Meridian Markers

A Barge With A Mission

The barge may be viewed as on a conceptual journey from the hand of a person, placed it into currents of the unknown.

This is NOT the first time an artist has wanted to build a  boat in Tulsa County. You can check the famous one:
Bartholic's Boat

Every Animal known to Man

Not all that glitters is gold. 

Not all that disappears is gone.

Saturary In The Farmers' Market

Thanks Cherry Street Farmers' Market for letting us display a small harvest of our ceramic greenbelt meridian Cantaloupes.  We have received supportive feedback and hope we can all take care of the world like the kids who held ceramic cantaloupes: with tender care, and with both hand.
This week, Islamic State group militants searched through the Syrian town of Palmyra and they don't have a good attitude in handling ancient objects with care. State strong Humanity!