The concept of a greenbelt – retaining an undeveloped or “wild” border of land around a portion of urban space has existed since ancient times. In 2014, Tulsa artists James and Yiren Gallagher have retraced the first Civilian Conservation Corps’ (CCC) shelterbelt in Mangum, and visited sections of the 100th Meridian in Oklahoma. This land is important for growing many crops including melons. The artists also traveled to Xinjiang Silk Road in Western China and saw again, a land famous for growing fruits, especially cantaloupes. By comparing land and water resources of two western frontiers, half a world apart, they saw resources stretched to their environmental limits in order to help feed the world. How do we collectively establish a limit to how far man will go for his own survival at the expense of losing everything else on Earth? Inspired by the movement and sounds of invisible animals on the edge of a wooded darkness, and supported by the strong warnings described in Donella H. Meadows The Limits to Growth, James and Yiren Gallagher plan to convince the town of Tulsa to help return a great circle of land back to the Earth. The circular path around the world will be named the Greenbelt Meridian (GBM). The artists’ installation at Hardesty Arts Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma represents a conceptual segment of this “no shoes, no fences, no roads, no buildings, no man’s land” corridor. Consider the Greenbelt Meridian as an earthwork monument dedicated to the continuation of life on our planet, yet beyond our imagination.
The Cow With Parasol
The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world. In this long vigil he often has to vary his methods of stimulation; but in this long vigil he is also himself striving against a continual tendency to sleep. Marc Chagall French artist, born: July 7, 1887, died: March 28, 1985
“..It is not acquired by them in a short time, even when much persecuted; but that in the course of successive generations it becomes hereditary.�
A Last Look/ by W.S. Merwin Even the words are going somewhere urban where they hope to find friends waiting for them some of the friends will think of trees as pleasant in a minor way much alike after all to us some of the friends will never be aware of a single tree they will live in a world without a leaf where the rain is misfortune
One Moldy Cantaloupe in 1941 Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin 1928-1945 and penicillin loved a rotting cantaloupe in a market in Peoria, Illinois.
On July 9, 1941, Howard Florey and Norman Heatley, Oxford University Scientists came to the U.S. with a small but valuable package containing a small amount of penicillin to begin work. Pumping air into deep vats containing corn steep liquor (a non-alcoholic by-product of the wet milling process) and the addition of other key ingredients was shown to produce faster growth and larger amounts of penicillin than the previous surface-growth method. Ironically, after a worldwide search, it was a strain of penicillin from a moldy cantaloupe in a Peoria market that was found and improved to produce the largest amount of penicillin when grown in the deep vat, submerged conditions. (The History of Penicillin by Mary Bellis) Because the surface of a cantaloupe can contain harmful bacteria, it is always a good idea to wash and scrub a melon thoroughly before cutting and consumption.
A lady who worked at the Keystone State Park Welcome Center mentioned to us there indeed were Roadrunners in northeastern OK. One curious roadrunner had in fact adopted the center and the park staff and would bring small kills, lizards and such to the front door of the Welcome Center. One day it did not show up. That is nature.
* About the Author:
James Gallagher went to State University of New York, Purchase Art School and studied printmaking, sculpture, and photography. James has produced a staggering volume of art, preferring to create daily small water color creations inspired by sights, real and imagined, visible for a second, while walking across a railroad bridge, on a forest lined bike path, or downtown.