Art can educate and inspire. Before it ends up in a gallery or a museum, however, art must be created. That process involves a tangible assault on the planet. Stop and think about the billions of gallons of oil or acrylic paint used every year. Consider the ingredients in paint pigments, which possibly include lead, chromium or other hazardous metals. Or think of the byproducts of painting: turpentine and mineral spirits. (Then calculate how much of these toxins are poured down the loft drain into the water supply.) Consider the forests cut down for frames. The damage to the landscape caused by harvesting chalk. The toxic fluids used in analog photography. Even the deleterious effects on the environment from the glue used by collage artists. Not to mention all the packaging involved.

And the list goes on. When the use of natural and chemical resources is tallied, the hallowed artist is just as guilty as others of endangering our planet in their search for truth and beauty.

But today a growing number of artists is reevaluating the way they bring art into the world. By utilizing naturally-occurring objects, recycled goods or found items, a new generation of green artists stays true to personal expression while also minimizing their impact on the earth.

Here in the mid-Hudson Valley, where a concentration of the population lives in proximity to fragile ecosystems, a number of artists are rethinking the creative process. Call it sustainable or green or conscientious art, but these visionaries consider the source of their material before they will art into being. The result is work that makes two statements: one about the mindset of the artist and another about the merits of conservation.

Roy Gumpel, Woodstocklamps
A line of hardwood light pieces, known as “Woodstocklamps” comes from Roy Gumpel. The Woodstock-based artist gathers the gnarled, vibrant material from walks through the wood. Gumpel digs in the soft sod and unearths pieces of wood that have been slumbering for perhaps two decades in the Ulster County soil and leafmeal. The wood becomes the building material for one-of-a-kind wall lamps. Gumpel’s pieces reflect an untamed, primal nature, suggesting medieval torches … or perhaps the living room furniture of Hobbits.

“I don’t really think of [the lamps] as recycling,” Gumpel said, “though it definitely is. I’m just making art starting with a piece of nature’s art.”

But make no mistake; these art pieces are completely functional. Each has a 7- or 4-watt light bulb inside, imparting a soft halo of light on the room. The lamps can be wall-mounted as wooden sconces or installed on a table, mantle, bureau, floor or ceiling. The unruly wood is lightly stained with a natural oil to soften its chaotic patterns. An 8-inch cord is connected to an off-on switch. Depending on what raw materials Gumpel has found in his bosky travels, the lamps can range in height from six inches to three feet. There is no sawing involved, so the natural grain of the pieces is preserved, enhanced by the random designs afforded by the wood’s decomposition.

Known better in the region for his work as a photographer (www.roygumpel.com), Gumpel was inspired to create the hardwood lamps during a trip to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. Traipsing along the shore, looking for still lifes through his viewfinder, he saw “little gorgeous cornucopia-shaped wood along the shore”.

When he returned home, Gumpel began searching for similar wood in the local forests, especially where mighty trees fell to the earth and began to decompose. When he’s in the woods to take photos or riding his dirt bike, Gumpel becomes hypnotized by his hunt for hardwoods “for possible sconce activity,” he said. Owing to the haphazard availability of the woods, Gumpel makes pieces only when the earth offers up sufficient material. Pieces sell for between $110 and $190, but larger items are priced accordingly.

“Sometimes I feel a bit guilty removing them from their comfortable earthy resting places actually,” Gumpel said. “But I think they’re pretty happy when they realize what I have planned for them. A resurrection literally.”

Jacinta Bunnell
Jacinta Bunnell recalls her first illustrations in the 1970s were drawn on menus from the Scranton, Pennsylvania country club managed by her father. Whether the resulting work is a painting or a sculpture, the Ulster County-based artist goes out of her way to secure materials that have been utilized and thoughtlessly discarded.

“It’s very essential for me to work with recycled materials,” she said, “because I don’t want to be creating more waste in the world.” Her house is an ad hoc gallery, displaying sunny and sly pieces punctuated by bright colors but also identifiable if unexpected items. A huge collage in the shape of an Indian mandala was fashioned from a discarded piece of wood which has been affixed to the end of an industrial-sized spool used for telephone wire.

Bunnell’s repurposing of random pieces is linked to her sharp eye as an artist. She has found art lurking in a vintage children’s puzzle; she has envisioned in a discarded piece of wood from a construction site a suitable canvas for a huge pastel butterfly. Bunnell has a huge cache of decorative paper she uses in her art. She has been collecting it since childhood. Among the innumerable pieces are torn wrappings from presents, colored engravings from old books, various scraps from restaurant menus and old political posters.

This dedication to green art is a crusade for Bunnell; she sells her own works at progressive political festivals and ecological events where art pieces address issues of environmental destruction and overpopulation. She also teaches art classes to children and insists that they fuel their creativity with recycled materials. Thus, the lesson of sustainability is instilled early in young ones who can’t even spell the word.

Ideal materials for her art exist everywhere, Bunnell said. The short list for resourceful craftspeople includes yard sales, the curbside on garbage day and the transfer station in your town. While she enjoys the hunt, the artist can be guaranteed a jackpot when she visits The Hudson Valley Materials Exchange.

The Hudson Valley Materials Exchange
Recently relocated to a new home at the New Paltz Recycling Center, the Exchange is a chaotic hodgepodge of items. Depending on your perspective, it either looks like a huge garbage pile, a treasure hunt or a yard sale for the Apocalypse. People from all over the region find their way to this modestly-run operation for items that defy description but will please the modest wallets of a working artist.

On a typical week, the flotsam and jetsam of the Exchange can include the following: Antique conveyer belts, antique spools, paints (25 cents apiece for tubes), carpet squares (starting at 75 cents), burlap coffee bags, doll faces (75 cents apiece), scraps of foam core (ranging from 75 cents to free), miscellaneous pieces of aluminum (5 cents), wire twist-ties, styrene rectangles, rolls of vinyl cabinet lining paper (50 cents per yard) and straw flowers ($1.50 per bunch). For sheer variety and cost, the Hudson Valley Materials Exchange may be a green artist’s best friend. To exact a discount on these already low prices, one must sign up as a member. There are currently almost 300 members.

Billing itself as “an educational waste prevention organization,” HVME essentially gathers and manages the excess materials generated and discarded by businesses located throughout the Hudson Valley, primarily from on Orange, Ulster and Dutchess Counties. Since the operation is one of only two “materials for the arts/education” programs accessible to the public in this state, people tend to make the journey from neighboring states to purchase goods. They also manage a “Community Warehouse” in Orange County, to provide materials to schools and artists. Teachers faced with shrinking art class budgets come to HVME to obtain educational and artistic materials at manageable costs.

According to the group’s executive director Jill Gruber on their Web site, “The average consumer does not realize that about 75% of waste is created in the manufacturing process of products they purchase.” Materials gathered by Gruber’s staff are presently distributed to eight school districts and 25 schools in the tri-county area. If you drop by one afternoon to peruse the offerings, expect a lecture on the origins of mass-produced waste in America.

A More Thoughtful Equation
Art buyers can become part of a more thoughtful equation. When you visit galleries, let your sense of aesthetics be framed by your environmental logic. If a work of art is striking visually, but it is larded with chemical-heavy paints or materials, think twice. It certainly isn’t good for the environment. And if you’re breathing in the toxic fumes on a steady basis, does it really matter how good that piece looks on your living room wall?


For More Information…
Roy Gumpel’s Woodstocklamps
www.roygumpel.com, 845 544 5373

Jacinta Bunnell
www.parthenialoyal.etsy.com, 845 687 7078

The Hudson Valley Materials Exchange
www.hvmaterialsexchange.com, 845 567 1445