Art department faculty member contributes to sustainable urban landscaping project

Matthew Friday, graduate coordinator for the department of art at SUNY New Paltz, is a founding member of SPURSE, a coalition of environmental designers that recently developed a “Multi-Species Commons” on the campus of Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif.

This project, made possible by funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, combined principles of sustainable landscaping, public art and community planning to transform the 34-acre campus into a rich, inclusive urban ecosystem.

“We hope this project will encourage people to think of themselves as caretakers of the land they’re living on, and not just something they’re passing through,” Friday said.

Friday has been a core member of SPURSE for roughly 15 years. He said the guiding philosophy of the group is to use artistic practices to empower communities to transform themselves not just physically, but ethically.

“Our focus is on creatively reworking relationships to ecology,” he said. “We work not only along the standard model of art as generally involving representation and metaphor, but actually having hands-on practices that are beneficial to communities.”

The Pitzer Commons landscape redesign took place over a two-year period, putting it among the most ambitious projects SPURSE has undertaken. Friday and his colleagues collaborated with Pitzer College community members and students to plan and implement the development, and took an active role in every phase from design to construction.

The landscape includes maps, directories and other resources highlighting the site’s ecological diversity and utility. It adheres to sustainability priorities like water conservation and local food sourcing, but it does so while promoting aesthetic values and incorporating community artwork.

One example of the melding of these ambitions is the ground installation of ceramic vessels, sculpted by Pitzer students, which capture water to be released slowly through the earthenware into the soil. Similarly, the majority of plants chosen by the developers are edible or produce materials that can be used by Pitzer’s art students and faculty to make natural fibers, paper and dyes.

Friday is working to impart the strategies and guiding principles of his work in sustainable urban development to SUNY New Paltz students across the disciplines. He regularly conducts campus foraging tours, and challenges students to work with him to come up with sustainable landscaping ideas for campus.

“So many of our art students are interested in this kind of work,” Friday said. “Here in the Hudson Valley there’s this great history of farming, environmentalism, activism, sustainability and land stewardship, and I believe our students want to be a part of that.”

More information about SPURSE and the Pitzer Multi-Species Commons is available online. View the project’s photo albums here and here.