>> Wendy Tremayne ( gaiatreehouse.com) is renovating an RV park into a 100% reuse, off-grid B&B in Truth or Consequences, N.M. Another project, Swap-O-Rama-Rama ( swaporamarama.org), is a clothing swap and DIY workshop designed to offer people an alternative to consumerism.
A while back, I received an email with a curious subject line: “Would you like a greenhouse?” Links in the email led me to a Flickr page of photos. The greenhouse in question is a tall, translucent igloo made of 5-gallon water bottles (Figure A). This wondrous object of utilitarian garbage-art was part of an exhibition that took place in Roswell, N.M., created by Flo McGarrell during a residency at the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program. McGarrell’s creative task was to live on the land. His challenge as a gardener was to use tools made from waste materials found lying about the urban landscape. Locals who heard about his I♥Roswell project recalled the numerous Roswell artist-resident gardens that didn’t work. A
Observing that the town’s cultural hub seemed to be the local Wal-Mart — a place where teenagers go on dates — and noticing that shops selling UFO trinkets saw more traffic than the town’s two impressive art museums, McGarrell, 34, turned his attention toward research rather than to local lore. He read books about permaculture, gardening, and soil building at the local library, with little regard for the stories of previously wilted leaves.
McGarrell observed life cycles and decided that he would create agrisculpture: “compost, plant in compost, water, harvest, preserve, save seed, and repeat.” There were mini cycles too: “Eat, wash dishes, feed plants dishwater, poop, flush with graywater, repeat.”
A conversation with the dumpster also helped. “It called out, ‘Flo, you come from a line of thrifty cheapskates (hunters and gatherers)’,” McGarrell recalls. “‘ You cannot resist. C’mon, see what’s inside. It could be treasure!’” The final work featured worm bins made from supermarket racks, bucket planters, and that stunning greenhouse.
McGarrell compares the process to “blowing on a dandelion puff … seeds, spores, and memes infect,
inoculate, and ferment in the world.” He categorizes his work as open source and has published the Roswell project’s “code” on recipe cards displayed beside the exhibit.
While not a gardener at the onset of the project, McGarrell now sports a cigar box of seeds (saved, stolen, and swapped). He plants them regularly by means of “graffiti gardening” as he travels, though he recounts that our society does not always welcome thrifty-minded sorts. “I was reprimanded by the police for ‘stealing from the city’ while diving the recycling bin in the Roswell Wal-Mart parking lot,” he says. “There ought to be ‘Free’ boxes in every neighborhood.”
McGarrell reminds us that when using junk as a creative material, “You don’t have to settle for what you find. You can modify to your specifications and all the while learn about tools, methods, your environment, and life! That’s the low-price-high-value deal that Wal-Mart can never beat.”
Photography by Flo McGarrell
» To see more of McGarrell’s work, go to gowithflo.net.
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