The Web of Life by Mary Erickson Ph.D. with Arizona Art Teacher Susanna Yazzie

Although individuals can do great things, they can often do more if they come together around a cause in which they all believe.

In 1855, Chief Seattle said, “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”

Today, when people say we should “go green,” they agree with Chief Seattle. They see people as interconnected with all of the earth’s lands, seas, plants and animals. They believe we should come together so we can preserve the planet that we love and depend upon.

The Green Revolution* exhibition at the Tempe Center for the Arts brings together artists, architects, designers and scientists to express five key ideas: 1. Recycle (Waste Not) 2. Energy 3. Carbon Footprint 4. Hybrid House 5. Composting and Gardening *The TCA’s version of Green Revolution is based on an exhibition originally created by Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry and its Black Creativity Council and is made available by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.

Artist Dan Collins created an interactive community map. He invites visitors at the Green Revolution exhibition to submit local “green information” so the map will grow more and more rich and complete.

Artist Sherrie Zeitlin founded The Art Resource Center where she collects and gives away supplies people of the community can use to make art. She has constructed a loom in the Green Revolution exhibition on which visitors are invited to add to the growing weaving by bringing and using recycled plastic bags. Photos by Michael Ging

Especially for the Green Revolution exhibition, artists Joan Baron and Laurie Lundquist created an outdoor installation, called “In Seeds We Trust,” that promotes seed saving and growing produce at home. The floating bottles include seeds people can take home to plant.

The architects at Architekton designed the award-winning Tempe Center for the Arts and, more recently, the LEED certified Tempe Transportation Center. Visitors to the Green Revolution exhibition can explore a room the architects designed to teach about energy savings and CO2 emissions.

Artists Lisa Sipe and Samuel Troxell added meaning to their artworks in the exhibition by using recycled parts of now destroyed structures. Sipe incorporated pieces of burned wood from buildings destroyed in an Arizona wildfire in her artwork. Troxell used rubber remnants of the Tempe Town Lake dam that burst in 2010 in his artwork.

Lisa Sipe Samuel Troxell

You are invited to visit the Tempe Center for the Arts to see how these and other artists, architects, designers and scientists are “going green” in the Valley of the Sun. Several installations let you interact or add your own thread to what Chief Seattle called the “web of life.”