Making Land Art With Phoenix

Making-Land-Art

Ever since I got back home from my personal painting retreat Phoenix has been completely immersed in sculptures!

That’s the life of a 3 year old boy, I guess. One minute your world is dump trucks, backhoes, and front end loaders and then the next thing you know you’re borrowing sculpture books from the library and waking Mom up at 5-freaking-AM pleading to go make land sculptures.

But believe me, I’m not complaining.

Instead I’ve been swooning with joy that Phoenix is showing such an interest in art! And sculpture?  Wow! This fact alone has been inspiring me to step out of my creative tendencies and start exploring new terrain.

One of the things we’ve been doing a lot of is making land art!

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Above is our first collaboration of 2016!

Phoenix and I ate breakfast and then headed out to the mountains by our home.  Basically Phoenix is the artist and I’m just there to help gather supplies, follow orders, and keep an eye out for snakes!

This morning it was all about finding and arranging ONLY the white rocks and drawing in the dirt with sticks.

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Our next collaboration took place at Phoenix’s personal studio– AKA the neighborhood playground.

Here Phoenix veered away from gathering and arranging and instead explored building forms out of wet sand.

To find wet sand we had to literally dig into the playground floor — but as we did I shared with Phoenix that artists create sculptures out of clay all the time and that clay is actually found by digging into the Earth as well.

We talked about all the things that grow in the Earth and what a blessing it is to take care of her and how she in return takes care of us.

When Phoenix decided that his piece was finished he declared that it was a community for ants to live in and that it included a parking lot, a highway, and a place for dump trucks to sleep.  Proof that dump trucks are always a staple in the minds of 3 year old boys — sculptures or no sculptures!

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The final land art shown in the photos above has got to be my favorite collaboration of 2016 so far!

Phoenix and I got bundled up in extra layers and hit the road on my beloved bike Artemis right as the sun was rising.  We stopped at a little park made for bird watching and began by enjoying the colors dance across the pond and sneaking down a hidden trail.

Once we were done exploring Phoenix asked me to help him gather pods, rocks, and sticks for his sculpture.

My heart simply melted watching him so lovingly and precisely place each piece in a row.  He told me he was making patterns as his sculpture and every time a blast of wind came dancing by he wrapped his little arms around it to protect it.

I hope that our adventures making land art together will inspire you too to get outside.  

If you CLICK HERE  you’ll see some of my own personal land art pieces I’ve created over the years and THIS ONE HERE is a really powerful land art/ art journaling piece I created in the Spring of 2015 to honor the life lost in the Sedona Slide Fire. 

Plus, please stop by next Friday when I’ll be sharing another “Making Art With Phoenix” that will definitely inspire those of you living in more snowy parts of the globe!

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