Today I am writing an essay about Tue Greenfort who privides a prime example of this conservationnist approach to studio art practice. The opening paragraph reads:

Tue Greenfort is no lightweight. However, he may qualify for the title of featherweight champion of eco-art. Greenfort’s renown testifies to the possibility of succeeding in the art world by doing very little. His secret is that his ‘little’ is motivated by ethical and material restraint, not laziness.   In describing Greenfort’s work, the adjectives ‘extravagant’ and ‘extraordinary’ modify nouns such as subtlety, delicacy, and encouragement.

His work provides a model worthy of being duplicated and adopted.

The common criteria for choosing art mediums include price, convenience, and workability. Many eco-artists activate their environmental concerns by expanding this list. They also evaluate mediums in terms of the resources and methods used in producing it, supply line costs, the energy costs of working with it, the waste it generates, and so forth. Some not only limit their practices to those mediums that earn the environmental seal of approval, but they use them in a manner that demonstrates renewability and recycling. Or they might model ways to minimize footprints by scavenging derelict materials. Or they might choose an unstable medium that decays in order to honor the Earth’s dynamic transformations. Even methods of accessing and acquiring mediums carry ecological significance. Consider, for instance, the eco messages communicated by the following scenarios: purchasing commercially manufactured mediums; purchasing raw materials that are processed by hand; scavenging free materials; processing free materials from foraged plants, animals, and minerals; cultivating raw materials by growing fibrous plants, raising animals for bone or fur, or mining ores and metals.

The one category of consideration that still seems underrepresented is conservation. Using less, no matter what the medium, broadcasts a primary shift in conduct related to human consumption patterns. 

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