Eco-Art and Regulation

I was sorry not to be able to join y'all in the sunshine @ Harriton on Friday, but today I took my own little eco-trip. It started with the amazed discovery that the Pennsylvania State Constitution has an Environmental Rights Amendment** (who knew?!), and that the  Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently ruled in accord with that amendment, to intervene in the state's legacy of “virtually unrestrained exploitation"-- a potential “game charger,” able to turn state environmental regulation “upside down.”

Feeling happy about this, I wandered over to the Art Alliance, in my neighborhood, to see a few very-related installations of eco-art:  Caroline Lathan-Stiefel's "Frakturing" uses a 1905 stained glass window to invite viewers to think about issues of plant diversity and sustainability in an age of fracking. Another of her installations, called "Greenhouse Mix," is a delightful “jungle in the salon." In a third, called "Noise," my companion, the pomester, made music by changing his grip on a couple of apples.

So I'm weighing and comparing this range of representations, both legislative and artistic....

** “The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.”