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A wonderful Malden-based group called "Coffee Shop Artists" pulled together an exhibition focusing on how artists are reacting our climate crisis. I was delighted to have two pieces chosen for the show. And I'm especially honored to have been interviewed for this exhibition by Malden's Fanuel Muindi. You can watch the video here.  Golden Calf, 12x12 inches, glass and ceramic mosaic. $500. Beef is viewed by most of the U.S. as wholesome, healthy, and bucolic. It puts people in mind of flowering meadows, cows gently mooing, and calves gamobling about. Nothing could be further from the truth of the American agro-industrial beef industry, which is single-mindedly concentrated on making money--and as much of it as possible.
On average, beef production emits 2–9 times the greenhouse gases of other animal products, and more than 50 times the GHGs of most plant‐based foods per unit of protein. Beef production is also a major driver of global deforestation and land degradation. Globally, cattle produce almost 4/5 of total livestock GHG emissions, and methane contributes more than a third of total livestock CO2 emissions. Almost all of these emissions are produced by large agro-industrial activities. My golden calf's body is divided into sections identified by logos of the Big 4 meat processing companies controlling the US market. She stands in a small box inside a sterile concrete barn with almost no access to natural light, the outdoors, or any of the activities that cows evolved to do. She will soon be slaughtered for food.  Lydia Maria Child was an abolitionist, women's rights activist, novelist, journalist, and Massachusetts resident, who--unlike most women at the time--was famous in her own right in the 1800s. Born Lydia Francis in 1802 in Medford, Massachusetts, she lived there until about age 11, and is supposed to have visited her "Grandfather's House" in the same town. You might know the holiday song "Over the River and Through the Woods" [to Grandfather's House We Go]. Well, the lyrics of that song are taken from a poem that Child wrote in 1844 called "The New-England Boy’s Song about Thanksgiving Day," and "Grandfather's House" is thought to be THIS house (although that's not been proven for absolute sure). The house overlooks the Mystic River--the same river as in the song. The woods, alas, are no more.  A few years ago Medford reconfigured an intersection a few houses from Grandfather's House, in an effort to slow down traffic turning onto the street. The new corner now features a garden planted with native grasses and wildflowers. Since the garden is so close to the house of Maria Child's grandparents, it was named in her honor. She was a woman far ahead of her time: strong, confident, articulate, famous, and published under her own name. You can read more about Maria Child on the Medford Historical Society website. I wanted to create a mosaic piece for the garden to honor Lydia Maria Child. I incorporated a portrait of her as a young woman, a few identifying words, and a graphic based on her own watercolors. Yes, Child was also an accomplished artist, as were most women of her time. The flowers I used as a model appeared in Flowers for Children (1844-1846), which she both wrote and illustrated. The concrete "book" references the many many books that Child wrote during her prolific professional career.  |
AuthorSusan Altman: Mosaicist, Community Artist, Writer/Editor Archives
April 2025
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