Saving the Earth by Changing Art

The Art Inspector is a third party certification agent that examines the environmental impact of art process and practice. Art Inspector works with interested agents such as curators, artists, collectors, and others in order to pre-qualify artists who pass a standard of environmental stewardship.

The Healthy Art Program, created by The Art Inspector, is an ongoing project with an art and curatorial focus. The purpose of the project is to assess the energy consumption, material use and environmental impact of art making and to educate artists about lowering their carbon footprints. Five Santa Clara County artists, Therese May, Shannon Amidon, Lori Krein, Genevieve Hastings and Christine Canepa, agreed to participate in an eco-makeover.

The five artists allowed The Art Inspector into their studios to conduct an audit of their art supplies as well as an energy assessment of their working spaces and use of power tools. Based on these assessments, The Art Inspector made some studio modifications and gave the artists tools to track their energy consumption.

Additionally, The Art Inspector supplied all of the artists with green art-making materials that have a low carbon footprint, lessening the environmental impact of their work. Some of these included replacing lighting with CFL bulbs, monitoring use of power tools, using natural mineral pigments and non-forest paper products. All of the artworks in The Energy Smart Exhibition feature the new green materials and reflect the transformation of thought, application and practice undergone by each artist.

The transformation of the artists and their work can be tracked through the artists’ blog at https://artinspector.org/blog.