EM3050: Call for Art - Earth Month Virtual Exhibition
Call for Art
Earth Month Virtual Art Exhibition
April 15 - May 21
Fresh Water and Your Watershed
Water Cycle. Trees and green plants pull water from the earth and offer it to the atmosphere in transpiration, while the ground, lakes, and the ocean also give up moisture through evaporation. Atmospheric moisture condenses and eventually falls to earth as rain, snow, sleet or hail. Through snowmelt and surface runoff, the fallen water feeds streams and then rivers and lakes. The entire land area draining into a given river, forms that river’s watershed. In your local watershed, (ours is the Sudbury-Assabet-Concord River), we are all downstream, so all water-related events in our watershed affect us. Water also enters the earth where it nourishes trees and other vegetation or it sinks deeper to become groundwater, which flowing always downward feeds lakes, springs, and wells. All fallen water either enters the ocean or evaporates and the cycle repeats.
Wonder. There is the intricate beauty of a snowflake’s symmetrical design, the tranquility of a flowing stream, the invitation of a winding river carrying autumn leaves, the abundant life of swamps, fens, marshes, and estuaries, and the pure magic of a spring. Can we hold on to these things both physically and spiritually?
Engineering. In the United States, we assume that we will have drinkable water from our faucets, but supplying clean water is a complex process involving reservoirs, wells, pumps, filtration, rounds of disinfection, and hundreds of miles of local distribution pipes. Each town has its own system, story, and history. Even now Concord and other towns litigate for control of limited water resources
Access. Nor does everyone have equal access to clean water. Some 2 million Americans live without access to safe drinking water and sanitation, and race is the strongest predictor of such problems. Both African American and Latinx households are twice as likely as white households to lack complete plumbing, while native American households are 19 times more likely. Worldwide, 780 million people lack access to an approved water source, and 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation.
Power. Flowing water has immense potential power. Available waterpower along the Merrimack River made huge cotton mills possible and built the cities of Lowell and Lawrence in Massachusetts, and Manchester in New Hampshire. But too much water can create massive destruction, and globally flooding causes annual urban property damage estimated at $120 billion. But too little water can be just as destructive, and global climate change will dramatically increase both flooding and drought.
What aspect of water speaks to you as an artist? Express your response in any artistic medium: drawing, painting, sculpture, collage, multi-media, poetry, song, photography, video, dance, or performance. We encourage you to focus on our own major watershed, the area drained by Sudbury, Assabet, and Concord Rivers.
Submissions due April 6, 2020, 5pm.
Limit of 3 submissions per person. Please email high-quality images of your piece(s) to caroline@theumbrellaarts.org
