Park Water Arts
Park Water Arts enriches watershed stewardship through arts, history, science, engineering, and municipal design initiatives that reflect the kaleidoscopic beauty of urban sustainability. By networking across diverse cultures, institutions and professional interests within our local watershed context, Park Water Arts creates an innovative synthesis rooted in measurable environmental benefits.
About You
Section 1: You
First Name
Mary
Last Name
Rickel Pelletier
Website URL
Organization
Park River Watershed Revitalization Initiative a project of Farmington River Watershed Association
Country
United States, CT
Section 2: Your Organization
Organization Name
Park River Watershed Revitalization Initiative a project of Farmington River Watershed Association
Organization Website
Organization Phone
(860) 881-5089 or (860) 658-4442
Organization Address
c/o FRWA 749 Hopmeadow St., Simsbury, Ct 06070
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
Organization Country
United States, CT
Your idea
Name Your Project
Park Water Arts
Country and state your work focuses on
United States, CT
Describe Your Idea
Park Water Arts enriches watershed stewardship through arts, history, science, engineering, and municipal design initiatives that reflect the kaleidoscopic beauty of urban sustainability. By networking across diverse cultures, institutions and professional interests within our local watershed context, Park Water Arts creates an innovative synthesis rooted in measurable environmental benefits.
Website URL
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
This is an innovation in environmental stewardship because it creates a watershed-based interchange of scientific research, volunteer service and imaginative experiments. Park Water Arts demonstrates how cities can be revitalized through environmental creativity. Park Water Arts taps into combined organizational and individual intelligence to reflect upon the local watershed context, and ways in which our daily lives relate to regional and global health. Park Water Arts expands participation opportunities across a broad network of civic institutions and emerging innovators.
The hyper-local environmental knowledge network created by Park Water Arts can motivate change, especially with respect to water - a key measurable link between human health, regional watershed vitality, and the global environment. A long-term goal of Park Water Arts is to inspire collective involvement in shaping green infrastructure connectivity throughout the watershed.
Green infrastructure can reduce urban stormwater run-off and combined sewage overflows while generating new jobs that create beautiful cities sustained by healthy ecosystem benefits. While green infrastructure is not a "new" idea -Frederick Law Olmsted integrated environmental functions into 19th century landscapes- there is a growing list of contemporary design strategies, such as green roofs, bioswales, rain gardens, green walls and rain harvesting that depend upon advanced technology, as well as a progressive civic cultural interests.
The implementation of green infrastructure depends upon the intensity of community interest in site-specific strategies that rejuvenate local natural systems. Park Water Arts transforms barriers to urban change by sharing intelligence – and so demonstrating how functional environments improve civic life.
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What impact have you had?
By encouraging local environmental art projects, Park Water Arts enhances the on-going scientific research, advocacy, and community service project work of Park River Watershed Revitalization Initiative (PRWRI) that is based on established stewardship strategies. PRWRI has coordinated the removal of > 6 tons of trash through five annual river cleanups. PRWRI has collaborated with local public schools to remove invasive species, create rain gardens, and plant a green roof. Plus PRWRI has sparked research projects, such as stream surveys, water quality testing, and most notably, the North Branch Park River Watershed Management Plan, www.northparkplan.net. In addition, PRWRI has initiated two EPA regional conferences on stormwater management, including the July 2009 US EPA “Managing Wet Weather with Green Infrastructure” http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/docs.cfm?view=allprog&program_id=6&sort=name#...
Park Water Arts is expanding our perception of stewardship. Launched in March 2009 with the Chen Gallery opening of “Sustainable ?” at Central Connecticut State University Park Water Arts hosted inter-disciplinary exchanges about local environmental conditions that concluded with a cleanup of Bass Brook. In July, a New Britain Museum of American Art, panel discussion ‘Nature in Media: Art and Science’ outlined the way in which media shapes public awareness about the local and global environment. ‘Art for the Earth’ – a fall semester seminar at the University of Hartford - involved students in three site cleanups that probed beyond the assumption that there is any “away” location for garbage disposal by transforming trash into art pieces. Seminar students also presented site specific green infrastructure proposals to University Facilities.
Problem
The Park watershed extends across West Hartford, Bloomfield, Hartford, Newington, New Britain, Farmington and Wethersfield. Upstream tributaries flow into Hartford via North and South Branches of the Park or “Hog” River. These two branches flow through meadows, parking lots, backyards and floodplains before disappearing beneath I-84 and Bushnell Park. As the state’s most densely developed watershed, Park River Watershed is a rich confluence of diverse cultures, history, politics, businesses, and arts.
Yet few citizens understand how their basic lifestyle decisions impact urban watersheds. Non-point source pollution and combined sewage overflows pour from the Park watershed into the Connecticut River. If aware, citizens could act as individuals and collectively ask that municipal investments be greener. New interactive experiences are needed to refresh our cultural relationship with the nature that surrounds us – even if to simply utilize digital technology as dashboard of environmental data. Park Water Arts will increase civic awareness.
Actions
Our action is to create an activist, watershed-wide interdisciplinary educational network and to offer a resource of watershed specific information to arts, science, environmental, and educational groups. A year long Eco-Arts Festival will begin in August 2010 as a celebration of activities that explore relationships between community habits and local natural environments. We are involving artists who have created, or are currently planning eco-art installations. As the citizen awareness increases, Park Water Arts will encourage urban design and construction of sustainable green infrastructure (low impact development) projects.
As a campaign, Park Water Arts will extend through 2015, when the United Nations ‘Water for Life’ decade concludes, see http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/
Adequate funding is of course a serious challenge for all non-profit organizations. Seed funding would support our initiatives, which are now largely supported by the energy and interest of educators. Funding can support dedicated staff work, and the development of a website that can become a more intricate and stable reference of existing natural conditions within hyper-local environments
Results
Our first year began with 'Sustainable?' an exhibit and related events that included cleanup of Bass Brook. Local and international works were reviewed in 'Nature in Media: Art and Science’ at New Britain Museum of American Art. A fall cleanup of Batterson Pond removed 3.3 tons trash. We co-hosted the Wild & Scenic Film Festival.
Collaborative programming strategies have increased among the Park Water Arts founding organizations. Institutional newsletters have reported 2009 events generated by Park Water Arts, and are currently planning the Eco-Arts Festival.
Future outcomes are 1) to cultivate watershed art and science knowledge through a network of educators - and an online resource; 2) engage local and national artists in contemporary environmental challenges that reveal relationships between local and global conditions; 3) envision and re-design area waterway landscapes in drawings and in situ - that can result in permanent green infrastructure improvements within the urban fabric.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
August 2010 - August 2011
A year long Eco-Arts Festival orchestrated by Professor Buckberrough, Art History Department Chair at the University of Hartford will begin in August with 'Our Campus, Our Planet' environmental activities for 1500 freshmen at the University of Hartford along the North Branch.
The Eco-Arts Festval will continue with an interdisciplinary seminar, "Ecological Perspectives" at UofH. In Oct - Nov the Chen Art Gallery, will present works by Joy Wulke and Jerry Butler. There will be inter-disciplinary arts, science, and education courses at CCSU, as well as K-12 schools throughout the watershed – plus a theatrical piece: Metamorphosis of a Frog.
In 2011, the Eco-Arts Festival will continue with a conference, "Water on Our Doorstep: The Park River Watershed: Past, Present, and Future" that brings together academics, artists, practitioners in watershed management, activists, and students. Works of Olu Oguibe will be at Real Art Ways. In April the Global Environmental Sustainability Action Coalition will sponsor 'Water' a three-day CCSU symposium. Connecticut Forest and Park Association will host summer walks along the Metacomet Ridge.
August 2011 - 2012
Park Water Arts will support local and visiting eco-artist community projects. We will continue to evolve our website, www.parkwatershed.org in order to enable a more detailed study of hyper-local natural conditions. These observations can serve as an important climate change adaptation reference.
August 2012 - 2013.
Working with artists, scientists, engineers, landscape architects and urban designers, we will encourage urban design and construction of green infrastructure features and municipal arts projects that provide eco-system service benefits throughout the watershed. Optimistically, this will happen because citizens, elected officials and government agencies will recognize the benefits of urban watershed revitalization.
As a campaign, Park Water Arts events will extend through 2015, when the United Nations ‘Water for Life’ decade concludes http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/
What would prevent your project from being a success?
Our success could be thwarted by obscurity within the white noise of well-funded yet isolated institutional events that have no greater comprehensive environmental benefits. Risk adverse decision makers could hesitate to allocate funding to local eco-art experiments. Artists could fail to notice the need for an intense re-examination of our relationships to nature and culture. Painted cows can continue to parade commercial districts as art museums become night clubs. Eco-art projects could become just another episodic cultural programming event detached from civic change and measurable environmental consequences.
How many people will your project serve annually?
More than 10,000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
$1000 - 4000
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Yes
Sustainability
What stage is your project in?
Operating for 1‐5 years
In what country?
United States, CT
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
Yes
If yes, provide organization name.
Farmington River Watershed Association
How long has this organization been operating?
More than 5 years
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government?
Yes
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
Since 2006, Park River Watershed Revitalization Initiative (PRWRI) has been a project of the Farmington River Watershed Association (FRWA) a 501c3 founded in 1953. As a fiscal agent, FRWA has enabled the development of our project based funding. FRWA and other environmental non-profits, such as Rivers Alliance of Connecticut, provide essential practical guidance. CT Department of Environmental Protection and US EPA staff are reliable resources of scientific and regulatory information. Since 2004, PRWRI has served on the Citizen Advisory Committee to the MDC Clean Water Project, an improvement project that will reduce combined sewage overflows. These organizational partnerships are a reference to fundamental environmental goals.
Park Water Arts is innovative because the founding network of twelve arts, science and environmental organizations recognize the inherent potential for creative relationships. Infusing arts experimentation, with environmental benefits that can revitalize municipal design brings purposeful vitality to familiar institutions and the beleaguered image of industrial cities.
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
Park River Watershed Revitalization Initiative is currently evolving into a distinct urban watershed stewardship organization. Since 2006, Park River Watershed Revitalization Initiative has been a project of the Farmington River Watershed Association (FRWA). FRWA has provided essential guidance in development of Park public outreach and educational programming such as stream-walks, watershed mapping, invasive species removal, and river clean-ups. The Park and the Farmington River watersheds meet along the Metacomet Ridge. Drinking water for residents of the Park River watershed is drawn from the Farmington River watershed. These two watersheds overlap seven shared municipalities. With focus on urban watershed interests, we can enhance stewardship locally.
With advisors, we are preparing the framework of a new organization. This is an important first action. Park Water Arts will influence the identity of this new urban watershed organization, which will grow through the Eco-Arts Festival. Festival events will include experimental music, cinema, community mapping, and photographic documentation of the watershed, seminars and volunteer service projects. The yearlong ‘Eco-Arts Festival’ is a second action, which will expand Park Water Arts beyond the current network and further increase public awareness.
The third action will be to develop the characteristic features of our urban watershed stewardship identity. A new organization can develop identity in a joyous, inclusive process of inquiry about our relationship to nature. The Eco-Arts Festival will expose pro-active ways of weaving watershed stewardship into urban lifestyles. By encouraging arts experimentation, Park Water Arts can also inspire individuals, neighborhoods, institutions and municipal leaders to create a spectrum of green infrastructure features such as community gardens, green roofs, edible lawns, restored wetlands and bioswales that capture stormwater. Park Water Arts will reflect the vibrant characteristics of new urban environmental cultural experiences, so as to inspire sustainable greener municipal design improvements.
The Story
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
While working on three small green architectural projects, I, Mary Rickel Pelletier noticed that the benefits of green building, although significant, could not necessarily improve the surrounding urban context. At that time, (1999-2004) the US Green Building Council’s LEED rating system was just being introduced, yet I realized that there would need to be rating system for cities in order to simplify and accelerate change. I wrote about this opportunity in
“Criteria for a Greener Metropolis,” in R. Platt ed., The Humane Metropolis: People and Nature in the 21st Century City, Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press in association with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2006. pp. 261 – 277.
Green building clearly improves the environmental health and human performance of building occupants, and construction crews, yet does not alter the degradation of fragmented landscapes and waterways. Increasingly, the goals of urban design are determined by private developers who are motivated by profits gained from site specific projects, not by sustainable civic good. Our natural resources depend upon management practices that are the result of civic priorities.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
Park Water Arts is an innovation that emerges from the collaboration of Sherry Buckberrough, Elizabeth Langhorne, and Mary Rickel Pelletier. We came together around a shared dedication to two arenas of action: art and ecology. We are connected to a variety of institutions within the Park Watershed, including universities, museums, art galleries, K-12 school systems, environmental groups, and regional governmental organizations. Their collaboration on Park Water Arts has already advanced a beneficial process of cross-institutional communication and integrated project planning. Sherry, Elizabeth, and Mary have coordinated their diverse personal and institutional resources and energies toward the mutual goal of sponsoring public programming and developing creative ideas for the betterment of the local environment.
Sherry Buckberrough received her Ph.D. degree in Art History from the University of California, Berkeley. She is Chair of the Art History Department at the University of Hartford in West Hartford, CT, where she has taught since 1976. Her teaching and writing concentrates on twentieth century art, with particular emphasis on the work of women artists and the history of design. She has taught courses on environmental or eco-art for the past two decades and is presently offering advanced seminars on the topic. She has long term connections to all of the major art museums and galleries in the Hartford Region, having lectured, curated, or served on the boards of several of them.
Elizabeth Langhorne received her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania. She is Associate Professor of Art History and co-director of the Chen Gallery at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, CT. Her teaching and writing on modern art integrate issues of abstraction and artistic creativity with concerns for nature and the environment. She curated the first event supported by Park Water Arts—an exhibition in the Chen Gallery called Sustainable? that opened in March of 2009. She works closely with the Art Education program at CCSU, coordinating programs on art and the environment that reach out to dozens of K-12 schools in the greater Hartford area.
For over a decade, Mary Rickel Pelletier has provided independent, high-performance green design, research, and advocacy for innovative projects. She has worked with various environmental non-profits and design offices, including: Balmori Associates, Inc., Earth Pledge, Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, Trust for Public Land, SustainLane, and Ground Inc. Since 2004, Mary has concentrated on the evolution of Park River Watershed Revitalization Initiative, which highlights the potential to revitalize urban areas with green infrastructure. Mary has a Bachelor of Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design, as well as a Masters of Design Theory from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Also a graduate of the Colorado Rocky Mountain School, Mary was enlightened by simple solar heat gain calculations during a science class assignment.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Through another organization or company
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
Orion Grassroots Network http://www.oriongrassroots.org/ Orion Grassroots Network connects and strengthens the grassroots.
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