Blog

Apr 10, 2024

Earth Connections Land Art Exhibit returns to Farley Center through Oct. 31

An outdoor exhibit in Verona is shining a spotlight on sustainability, displaying artwork created solely of natural materials that can decompose back to where they originated from: the Earth. From now

An outdoor exhibit in Verona is shining a spotlight on sustainability, displaying artwork created solely of natural materials that can decompose back to where they originated from: the Earth.

From now until Tuesday, Oct. 31, The Linda and Gene Farley Center for Peace, Justice and Sustainability is transforming their land into sustainable artwork as part of the center’s sixth land art exhibit “Earth Connections.” Guests are invited to hike the roughly 12-acre Natural Path Sanctuary to locate pieces from over 20 local artists, including – for the first time – youth participants.

The Farley Center – an organic farm, nature preserve and green cemetery – has hosted a land art exhibit every other year since 2013. What started with a handful of artists has grown to include many large, entirely outdoor installments – even earning recognition through a photo exhibit at the Overture Center’s Playhouse Gallery in 2018.

The Farley family is no stranger to art either, center director Shedd Farley said. His parents, Linda and Gene, lived at this location on Spring Rose Road, which always had art displayed from many different places. They also created art themselves – Linda a watercolor artist and Gene a self-titled “doodler.” Shedd said his father’s “doodles” are visible as steel sculptures throughout the land.

Program director Caroline Farley said the two-month land art exhibit takes multiple trips to fully absorb all that it has to offer. Many creations blend seamlessly into their environment, making it a fun challenge to spot all the installations while following a map of the 12-acre property.

Additionally, the artwork can look different each time someone visits, Caroline said. Changing fall leaves and elements such as light play a key role in the presentation of the natural creations.

Assembling the sustainable pieces themselves for the biennial exhibit is only one part of the long, challenging process, Caroline said. Since every piece is made of natural materials and displayed outside, they are not immune to damage that may occur with weather conditions.

Despite uncertainty with the weather, the artists are dedicated to their pieces. Even after strong winds knocked down three artists’ hard work, they returned to the site, spending nearly 12 hours rebuilding the towering sculpture.

In addition to having the first ever youth participants this year, such as the Urban Indigenous Art and Sciences Youth Group, the center is also partnering with Dane Arts for the first Buy Local Market to take place outside of Madison since its inception in 2015.

The Dane Arts Buy Local 2023 (DABL) Annual Art Market will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 9 at the Farley Center. Everyone is invited to stop by for music, food carts, and fun in the woods.

At 1 p.m., guests can join for a guided tour of the Earth Connections exhibit alongside many of the participating artists. Original pieces from local artists will be available for sale.

“The Dane Arts Buy Local Art Market supports local artists by providing a platform to exhibit and sell their artwork,” Dane County Executive Joe Parisi said in a Dane Arts news release. “We look forward to celebrating our community of artists with this upcoming event.”

According to the release, Dane Arts has been promoting local visual artists to local businesses in a business-to-business effort since 2014. This works to highlight both the economic and cultural impact the arts generate throughout the county.

To learn more about the Farley Center, visit farleycenter.org. To learn more about the Dane Arts Buy Local Art Market, visit dablmarket.com.

The following artists are participating in the Earth Connections 2023 Land Art Exhibit at the Farley Center. Those marked with an asterisk will participate in the community tour during the Dane Arts Buy Local Market on Sept. 9.

Angela Johnson is an artist, educator and creativity coach located in Madison. She earned both her MA in Art Education and MFA with a focus in photography from the University of Wisconsin. Johnson’s work focuses on alternative processes in photography, installation and bookmaking. She has shown her work widely, participating in group exhibitions including the Fort Worth Cultural Art Center in Texas; Tilt Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona; Wichita Falls Museum of Art in Texas; The Creole Creamery in New Orleans, Louisiana; FotoFest in Houston, Texas and the Museum of Wisconsin Art.

Johnson has been a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin in the Art Department, teaching both “Intro to Darkroom” and “Intro to Digital Photography” to undergraduate students. She has two decades of experience teaching in formal and informal learning environments, including elementary schools, museums, senior centers, colleges and universities.

Erin McWalter is passionate about interactive public spaces and loves forests. She is a co-founder of Madison Traffic Garden with many projects including Wisconsin Food Forests. McWalter is returning for her second installation at the Farley Center. She is very excited to collaborate with Char DeVos this year.

Ameila Higgins, a vivacious 13-year-old has a great love for the outdoors, hiking on the Ice Age Trail, managing turkeys and sheep and attending naturalist training at botanical gardens in Wausau. She will be joining her grandmother, Char DeVos, and Erin McWalter with the outdoor installation.

Karen Reppen is a mixed-media artist whose work frequently combines commonly used items, unusual found objects and other materials to create curious sculptures, wall art and jewelry. Influenced by experience gained as a professional and volunteer hospice worker and end-of-life educator, Reppen’s work often includes images and metaphorical messages that are meant to invite the viewer into new discovery around matters related to aging, illness, death and grief.

Influenced by our ever-changing world and personal experience, Katrina Krueger has gained a lifetime appreciation for self-expression and creativity through various art forms. A true artist at heart, Krueger has always had a fascination for different mediums, whether it be hair artistry, many forms of painting and drawing, environmental sculptures or music. She takes pride in always being open and receptive to where her artistry takes her. Krueger has a true passion for discovering the beauty that lies in all of us and the world we live in and loves to translate that into her creations.

Krueger has been a beauty artist for the last ten years in Madison. She currently owns and operates The Wander Parlour, an online clean beauty boutique that specializes in hair and skin care that is environmentally friendly, nontoxic and cruelty-free. Krueger also operates a newly launched online eyewear boutique – Manifest Eyewear – that helps raise money for various organizations fighting for social justice.

John Steines grew up on the very southernmost edge of the Canadian Shield in north-central Wisconsin, just north of Leopold’s Sand Counties, exploring north-woods remnants and extensions along rushing creeks. His outdoor sculpture work began during explorations of woods and ravine as a child, weaving simple structures and figures. Steines’ two-dimensional work is primarily abstract expressionist oil canvases creating overlapping landscapes with figure form, often within dream context. His theme is resiliency – the challenges of attaining it both in personal human form, for species at large and in habitat. He enjoys working with peeled willow and bark.

Steines co-founded the Witness Tree Collective with Rebeca Power in 2013, working with science, art and conversation on critical issues of nature. He was the lead artist for the Intentionally Welcoming Long House display at Union Corners in 2016. Steines also drafted the Master Plan for Silverwood Park in Dane County. Currently, he is collating his work into a storyline describing his expressionist content within trauma and resiliency for an international art prize. He expects to grow that material into a book format for documentation.

Barry Sherbeck is a photographer, filmmaker, visual artist, curator and writer based in Madison. He has worked in visual art, communication and design for 35 years. In his art practice, Sherbeck loves to explore color and light as refracted in/on/through water, as well as the textures and play of light and shadow in nature. He enjoys pairing haiku with photographs a few times each week.

Betsy Delzer is a mixed-media painter and an art educator in Middleton public schools. She has led workshops for all ages in a variety of media, including art-journaling, collage and painting. This is her sixth installation at the Farley Center.

From Georgia to Kansas, Nebraska and now Wisconsin, Billy Morgan has enjoyed various landscapes and the beauty of nature in all of them. It’s important for him to stay connected with nature. The Farley Center and this project gives him the perfect opportunity to do so.

Ruthanna Hutton-Okpalaeke is a Wisconsin native, having lived in various areas from Madison and Green Lake to River Falls. She grew up in her parents’ garden where she benefited from the fruits of their labor and a little bit of her own too, catching garden snakes and sampling all the garden had to offer. After college, Hutton-Okpalaeke followed her passion for people and the land and joined the Peace Corps, living in Cameroon Central Africa for over two years working with Cooperative farming groups in Cameroon’s west region. Upon returning to the United States and a few stints working in various laboratory settings, she left lab work behind to work for Urban Triage where she manages their Agricultural Programs supporting Black farmers and families with farmland access, expansion and education.

Sue Schuetz works in metal, watercolor and cold wax/oil paint media. Her art is influenced by the natural world, by found objects and by industrial landscapes. These elements become important facets of her paintings and her interesting and unique mobiles, assemblages and objects tableau. Schuetz has shown/sold her work at Kaleidoscope in Mount Horeb; U-Frame It Shop on E. Johnson St.; Black Earth Public Library; Spring Green Taliesin Visitor Center; the marketplace in Viroqua; the Mazomanie Historic Arts Building and the WHA Annual Art Auction. She has also done commission work.

Schuetz has taken art classes at MATC, Rhinelander School of the Arts, the University of Wisconsin and Edgewood College. She has also had instruction from local artists and from the late watercolorist Joanne Hauser Warren. Scheutz’s outlook is toward the unusual and her tastes are eclectic. These traits contribute to her quirky, singular art forms which always beg a closer look.

Phil Saunders was born in 1949 and grew up on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay on the south shore of the Nanticoke River, referred to by Conroy and others as “the low country.” He traveled extensively in his youth, landing in Madison. Primarily a performance artist, Saunders is attempting a visual installation at the Farley Center out of regard for its mission and an attempt to develop his character.

Bobbette Rose is a mixed-media artist who is inspired by the rhythms and mysteries revealed through nature and the environment. She has volunteered and worked with the Farley Center/NPS for over 10 years and is the arts coordinator. This is the sixth land art installation exhibit she has helped organize. Although she will not participate as an artist this year, she will continue to work with the other artists and create the print materials for the show.

Dave Carlson recently retired and relocated to La Crosse. This allows more time for woodworking as an art form. Trees and the wood they produce make it easy to admire the art of nature and its artist.

Cooper Talbot is a New Jersey native and has been in Madison for 10 years. Two of her greatest loves helped plant some strong roots in a state where she had no one: music and agriculture. Talbot utilized access to radio broadcasts to celebrate Women in Music and Culture and Arts, becoming Madison’s favorite music radio personality seven years running. WORT 89.9fm gave her direct contact with the community, its needs and what it loves. Music is the most powerful medicine she knows, and it helps everything around her grow – literally. Every plant or flower Talbot grows has a favorite song. She has been gardening since a kid, inheriting her Uruguayan mother’s very green thumb.

Lessons in agriculture relate to Talbot’s everyday life. For example, the saying, “A seed neither fears light nor darkness, but uses both to grow” and “The tiny seed knew that in order to grow it needed to be dropped in dirt, covered in darkness and struggle to reach the light.” Joining Urban Triage’s Supporting Healthy Black Agriculture endeavor is the light this seed has been reaching for. Talbot looks forward to blossoming along with the crops.

Cynthia Reynolds is primarily a textile artist. The Farley Center – with its open doors, co-op farms and natural burial ground – draws her in to using her love of textiles to participate in being one with nature. This is Reynolds’ fifth year creating installations at the Farley Center.

Efrat Livny’s art is inspired by a deep love of nature and the multitude of creative expressions that she encounters as she travels in the world. The study and practice of Shamanism, Buddhism, Bodywork and the Circle Way have provided the foundational insights and inquiries that her art explores. Her mixed media creations utilize natural, found and recycled objects that she collects as she wanders through her neighborhood and around the world. She is especially enamored with sticks, stones, seeds, feathers and bones, along with beads, talismans and curious knick-knacks. Livny enjoys finding the hidden affinities between these objects, assembling them into objects that support presence, growth and connection to self, others and the world.

Ellen Khalifa is not a professional artist – she’s a retired public employee who has entertained herself with artistic challenges, such as doing props and stage settings for plays with Madison’s Theatre Guild, coordinating stage and lighting for local school programs, painting winter scenes on store windows of her husband’s business, making costumes for school and women’s programs and working in her large perennial garden. Khalifa has participated at Farley Center fall events for the last few years and always wanted to do one of the displays. She has a concept in mind and is looking forward to the challenge of making it happen.

Gene Delcourt grew up in a small mill town in Southern Maine. His great grandfather – on his father’s side – was recruited to move there from Quebec to work in the paper mill in the early 20th century. They came from a reserve called St. Francis in Odanak, Quebec, where the St. Francis River meets the St. Lawrence Seaway. This is the home of the Abenaki from which he is descended. After graduating from Westbrook High School, Delcourt joined the U.S. Military and completed ten years of service. He then realized his dream of becoming a high school educator and an artist, earning three degrees in Education and Fine Art from the University of Wisconsin. He had the honor of being Drumkeeper since 1995 for the Madtown Singers, a local indigenous drumming and singing group.

Delcourt’s art is inspired by the natural world and pays homage to regional, natural beauty. The art he creates reflects his personal connection to the Flora and Fauna of the Northern U.S. where he has always lived, along with the belief that anything he creates can only serve to enhance the natural beauty already present in the wood. All the wood used in his sculptures, caskets, snowshoes and violins are sourced from locally grown trees. These trees are acquired after being harvested and removed from homes around the state by local tree companies. Delcourt also harvests ditch willow for woven baskets from the wetlands and woodlands surrounding his home.

Kate Hieber-Cobb founded the Madison Area Permaculture Guild in the spring of 2008 and continues to coordinate the grassroots organization. Through her business. Sustainability on Stilts, LLC, she designed, educated and consulted on Permaculture. Hieber-Cobb has taught at the Continuing Education Department of Madison College, Olbrich Gardens and other venues. She was honored as a Badger Bioneer in 2010 and received recognition from Oxfam as a Woman Leader in her community in 2011. Hieber-Cobb previously served on the Advisory Board of the Edgewood College Sustainability Leadership Graduate Program. She presently works with Land Healing and Honoring, is a grief worker and is mostly retired and enjoying her own gardens and arts and crafts.

Justin Bitner is an artist/craftsman residing in Madison, where he attended the University of Wisconsin and earned an MFA. His work there involved creating environments based on sound and time, exploring spaces and human-made objects. The culmination of this body of work was an installation in MMoCA’s 2013 Triennial, which explored how “once humans are removed from objects, other forms of nature are revealed in their absence.” Bitner subsequently served as Artist in Residence at the Madison Public Library to create “Community Through Art.” He constructed a 50-foot-long pinewood derby track and invited local craftsmen to create “Art Cars.” While there, he held workshops for children to build cars from kits, themed on their favorite library books.

Bitner’s current work is installation-based. He pillages the nooks and crevices of various maker environments, investigating objects once used or created by others, most of which were deemed too beautiful to throw away. With this work, he acts as an archaeologist attempting to preserve and document the evolution of makers, craftsmen and society by rescuing objects from landfills or dusty cabinets and telling their stories on a gallery wall.

Kelsey Voy’s work with handmade paper is an extension of investigations with printed and dyed fabric, embroidery and garment construction. Voy earned a degree in Human Ecology with a major in Textile Design from the University of Wisconsin and currently studies at the University of Iowa Center for the Book as an MFA candidate. She pursues the meditative quality of craft and appreciates paper and cloth for their intricacies in carrying information.

Mona Cassis has a BS in Art from the University of Wisconsin. Her art mediums include jewelry and other metal-work, pastels, stained glass and pottery. Steve Heuer is a tag-along artist, trying out many of the art forms Cassis has worked in over the years.

Heuer spends most of his creative time in words, but also spends stretches of time in pottery, both thrown and hand-built. He finds a lasting beauty in the lines and forms in nature, particularly plant-life, striving to capture these in his hand-built pottery.

Cassis graduated from the University of Wisconsin Art School. She apprenticed with Mike Selfridge, a California potter and stained-glass artist, for many years. She continues creating when time and inspiration align. Cassis is a disciplined devotee to the process, finding joy in seeing a project through to its end. Both Cassis and Heuer sell their art at the weekly Artist’s and Farmer’s Market in Verona.

Char DeVos relocated to Madison from the northwest part of the state where she was an art teacher for over 25 years. Now retired, she devotes her time creating art, showing and selling, writing books, along with teaching workshops and private lessons. DeVos is currently a member of 608 Art Collective in Madison.

Urban Indigenous Arts and Sciences Youth began sketching out their art ideas for the Earth Connections Land Art. They individually developed their ideas, then as a group pulled ideas together.

Contact reporter Maddie Bergstrom at [email protected]

What: Earth Connections Land Art Exhibit – Self-Guided Tours

When: Tuesday, Aug. 15 through Tuesday, Oct. 31

Where: The Farley Center, 2299 Spring Rose Rd., Verona

Info: Visit facebook.com/events/1255576198379188/

What: Dane Arts Buy Local 2023 Annual Art Market

When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 9

Where: The Farley Center, 2299 Spring Rose Rd., Verona

Info: Visit facebook.com/events/223809897293614 or dablmarket.com

Seeking greater transparency - and greater community trust - the Dane County Sheriff’s Office wants to get body-worn cameras for its deputies,…

Written By

Our newsletter will get you up to speed on news, events & more

Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.

Error! There was an error processing your request.

Have the latest local news delivered every afternoon so you don't miss out on updates.

Currently in Oregon

We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!