By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art, Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education The action of going forward or onward in space or time. A method of doing or producing something. A continuous series of actions meant to accomplish some result. A movement toward a goal or to a further or higher stage. Advancement, growth, or development; continuous improvement. To grow or develop, as in complexity, scope, or severity; advance. A journey; continuation, development. Going on, under way, being done, hap­pening.

This fall, The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education presents Process & Progress – a gallery show that serves as the midway check­point for the LandLab environmental art residency.

LandLab is a unique artist residency program that integrates art, ecological restoration, and education. A joint proj­ect of the Schuylkill Center and the Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA), LandLab offers resources and space at the Center’s 340 acres of woods and meadows for artists to engage audiences in ecological stewardship and artistic creation. LandLab residencies will make innovative installations that prevent or remediate environmental damage while raising public awareness about ecology.

Since being awarded the residencies in spring 2014, the LandLab artists have been investigating, engaging, creating. They are exploring ecological challenges on the Schuylkill Center property – stormwater, invasive vines, declining pollinator populations, and disruptions to soil formation. This fall, the Process & Progress gallery exhibition showcases not only their LandLab work so far, but that other, often more hidden element: the artistic process itself.   The gallery contains diversity of work in various stages from all seven LandLab artists: Jake Beckman; Leslie Birch; Marguerita Hagan, B.H. Mills, and Maggie Mills; and WE THE WEEDS, a collaboration of artist Kaitlin Pomerantz and botanist Zya Levy.

In addition to the gallery show, this fall presents opportunity to see LandLab exhibitions on the Schuylkill Center grounds, both completed and in progress. Native Pollinator Garden, (a collaboration of Marguerita Hagan, B.H. Mills, and Maggie Mills) was completed earlier this summer, and has been visited by many pollinators and humans alike. Though many of the plants have died back for the winter, the asters are still going strong, and a few mistflowers and bee balm blooms are still active – all the plants in the garden were selected to provide blooms for a variety of pollinators from April through October, giving several generations of pollinators per year a source of food.

Recently, two big looms have been installed on our property by WE THE WEEDS for anyone to weave invasive vines on. As these residents work towards the installation of a large-scale sculpture created from woven plant material in Spring 2015, we invite Schuylkill Center visitors to participate in creating the tapestry panels which will comprise it. In this way, the exploration of global plant migration, and the ecological and cultural roles of non-native plants, becomes a hands-on, engaging experience, with a cumulative, archival result.  The looms will be available for weaving all fall. Read more about WE THE WEEDS’s residency here., and join the artists for a Botanical Cocktail Hour and Weaving Salon on December 6^th.

In environmental art, the process is often as important as the outcome itself; the remedial, social, and educational dimensions are given equal weight to the aesthetics, and the final piece is just one component of the entire artistic work. In revealing this process through the gallery show, we invite viewers to be more deeply a part of this work, and to engage with an aspect of art often left to the wayside.

As I reflect on what has happened under LandLab since only April, I am really humbled by the efforts of the artists and their collaborators, and the impact that this residency has had already.  Collectively, we have offered 9 public programs reaching over 250 people and two summer camp lessons engaging around 30 students.  One installation has been completed and continues to be monitored, and three investigations are deeply and thoughtfully underway.  Partnerships have been formed with organizations and individuals, extending the reach and strengthening the interdisciplinarity of the residency.  Hundreds of pollinators have had a new native food source, and we’ve begun to make just a tiny dent on the growth of invasive vines on the property.  It’s an honor to support a group of artists doing such fascinating and important work.  This gallery show really excited me for the rest of the residency to come, and I hope it does the same for all who view it.

Process & Progress will be on view through December 13^th. This exhibition will not be the last chance for the public to see the LandLab process as it develops: in spring 2015, the Cen­ter for Emerging Visual Artists will host a show in their gallery in Center City documenting the completed residencies, from start to finish.

More information about art on view at the Schuylkill Center can be found here. Support for LandLab is provided by the Knight Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, PECO, the Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation, and the William Penn Foundation.