by Elizabeth Garber
Most of Lewis "Buster" Simpson's art is about becoming aware of our environment, proposing "quick fix" or microcosmic solutions to world problems (thus evoking the slogan "think globally, act locally"), and addressing the interdependent future of humans and the environment. Simpson has worked on ecological art projects since the 1970s.
In Host Analog, 1991, commissioned for the Portland, Oregon, ConventionCenter, Simpson is in the process of creating a forest of trees from a giant eighty foot long Douglas fir "nurse" log that was cut some thirty years ago and then not used as lumber. The rotting log provides an excellent growth medium for sprouting seedlings. Simpson has planted seeds of Western red cedar, Douglas fir, and hemlock directly on the log. To make the conditions for growth optimal, he has designed a misting irrigation system.
Time present, past, and future is an important element in understanding Simpson's approach to ecological art. Art critic Barbara Matilsky (1992) notes that Host Analog evokes the Pacific Northwest's rich natural heritage of huge old-growth forests that are currently being destroyed by timber industry clear-cutting. The art work introduces nature into the city while reminding us about a unique natural legacy that has been ravaged. It is symbolic in recalling this natural history and in providing a poetic example of how this heritage, to endure in the future, will need the input of human intervention. Simpson's drawing of Host Analog is a projection of that future, for the seedlings will grow slowly, about a foot in five to ten years, reaching maturity as a forest in approximately 500 years. Thus, it juxtaposes the centuries it takes to establish a forestand the minutes involved in cutting down a tree.
Host Analog is about hope for the future. Its image is one ofa decaying log that supports new life, about the regeneration of naturethat ultimately can come from responsible human stewardship, notes Matilsky(1992). It is an image of nature and humans living in harmony, and human understanding that all life is based in nature.
Creating an active social discourse with the public is important to Simpson. Prompting people to become involved, showing them how to do so with simple microsystems, is part of his work. Because Simpson creates systems to address environmental problems, and these systems have simple, low-tech parts (often from society's detritus) that can be adapted by individuals, there is a "utopian dimension" that invites the audience's involvement. Simpson offers to his audience a way to get involved by "downgrad[ing] . .. and demystify[ing] the otherwise arcane systems of resource, storage,use and recycling upon which we all depend but seldom acknowledge." (Kelley,p. 24) Yet the work should be understood as art, not engineering or ecology only. Simpson himself sees this offer to get involved as "flow[ing]back into art, infusing poetic prototypes with pragmatics." (Kelley,p. 24)
Simpson's message is about entropy as well as ecology. Earthworks artist Robert Smithson described entropy as a sandbox with two colors of sand, black and white. If we ask a child to make clockwise circles in the sandbox, the two colors become gray. If we then ask the child to reverse her or his direction in the sandbox, does the gray sand return to white and black? We cannot go back in time to nature in its pristine state, nor easily undo the many changes in the environment, social systems, and the human psyche that technology has created. But we, as a society and as individuals, canact to change our current and future natural, social, and psychological worlds through our actions. Simpson suggests this poetically, and, on a small scale, he offers an artistic model for change in our social ecology.
Clifton, L.A. (1993). "A conversation with Lewis "Buster" Simpson."Artweek, March 18, pp. 24-25.
Glowen, R. (1985). "A concern for the environment." Artweek, March 9, p. 6.
Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden/ Lawrence, S; Rifkin, N.; &Rosenzweig, P. (1990). Hirshorn Works 89: Daniel Buren, Buster Simpson, Houston Conwill, Matt Mullican. Washington, DC: Hirshorn Museum.
Kelley, J. (1993). "Work that works." Artweek, March 9, p. 24.
Matilsky, B. (1992). Fragile ecologies: Contemporary artists' interpretations and solutions. New York: Rizzoli/ Queen's Museum of Art.