Sunday, April 21, 2013

Earth Day In The Home Studio

The weekend before Earth Day, which is officially April 22, people start the celebration of this beautiful big blue planet that we live on.
EarthDayKids

Every day I try to live my life through best practices for sustainability of life and the natural ecosystem. Earth Day, Every Day is a mantra that goes through my head regularly as I move through my day. And I try my best to show my children how to make better choices.

And even though I am not anywhere close to my goal for attaining best practice in everything, I do try to make better decisions and feel confident in that I do pretty good practice - even better practice than most of the general public. It is not a competition by any means, but rather it is all about educating people and sharing things that work and are easy to implement into daily life. Then making those changes.

Here are some recent sites that I have come across that are inspiring me for change:

The above Nature Conservancy link brought a new book to my attention that I think in this day and age is quite a great topic to read up on: Mark Tercek. Nature's Fortune. Not from the approach of how can we make money from nature, but rather, what does nature offer, that businesses can benefit from and support the conservation of nature and changing ways they do business that makes a positive impact on the environment.

Locally, you can reach out to your Land Grant University - through their Cooperative Extension to the Master Gardeners if you have questions about your home landscape (PS - I became a MG in 2011).
Marsha Neal Studio dry ceramic clay scraps - add water + mix = usable clay.
Here is a post I wrote up last year for Beads of Clay about Earth Day Every Day in the Ceramics Studio.

When you are trying to obtain best practices in your arts studio, you should always take into account factors of safety above all else!
Are there better materials available today for you use to obtain a certain look you are going for in your work?
How do you dispose of your materials?
Does your community support Hazardous Waste Disposal?
Do you recycle and re-use as much as you can?
Where do you send your scrap metal?
What do you do with your "seconds"?
Marsha Neal Studio Scrap Metal (Sterling, Gold Filled, Base Metal)
What do you do to make every day Earth Day in your studio, in your art, in your home, in your community?
Leave a comment or better yet, if you have a blog, write up a post, then add the links in the comments.
Little things that you do may be little changes someone else can make in their every day too.

Ideas are like little seeds in the garden.

Let's see if we can do a follow up series of post with highlights of ideas and topics you mention and pull together some resources that are useful to allow everyone reading this blog to have easy access so that they can make changes in their every day life (and to be able to check back and make sure they are keeping up with those changes).

Happy Earth Day!

4 comments:

Jeni Gray said...

I am always trying to recycle or repurpose in my life as well. This year our community had to cut up a lot of downed limbs and trees with a shredder. I asked if I could use it for mulch at my place and they agreed.
What a terrific (not to mention "free") act of repurposing this was!!
I bought several new native trees for my place this year and the mulch works great for them and the flower beds. :)

mairedodd said...

although every day is earth day, i do love the official day of honor... in my studio i use a natural pickle - white vinegar and salt. i also take my scrap - copper, brass to a scrap metal yard. i get a couple of dollars and the metal is being recycled - win/win! thank you, marsha, this is a wonderful topic not only to ponder, but to mindfully take action on.

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful way to remind people to live their lives in support of our Earth. 'A great post.

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful way to remind people to live their lives in support of our Earth. 'A great post.

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