Eco-Art at Teaneck Creek

TCC is unique in it'south delivery to communicating the history and ecology of the park through ecological and artistic endeavors. Our signature EcoArt installations build on a community model that emphasizes the natural synergy between the arts, the environment, and education. Led by our EcoArt committee, artistic projects are identified, an appropriate EcoArtist is deputed. In collaboration with the creative person, activities and curriculum are developed for local school children and the community at big.

Larn more about the artists that volunteer their fourth dimension and talents to our park Hither.

Visit our Permanent Eco-Art Installations


Fiddling Gratuitous libraries - Under Construction

Artists Anthony Santella and John Chismar designed ii Little Libraries that will be shared with our community. This projection has been made possible in function by a grant administered by the Bergen Canton Department of Parks, Division of Historic and Cultural Diplomacy from funds granted by the New Jersey Land Council on the Arts.

Lookout the videos below for a backside the scenes await at creating these Little Gratis Libraries.

Peace Totem Pole - under construction

The Peace Totem by local artists Frank Ottochian and Anthony Santella incorporates native wood and recycled cans to convey letters of peace. This project has been fabricated possible in part by a grant administered by the Bergen County Department of Parks, Sectionalisation of Historic and Cultural Affairs from funds granted by the New Jersey Land Council on the Arts and by a grant through Investors Bank Foundation (read the press release Here).

Images higher up include conceptual blueprint, Executive Managing director Alexa, Artists Anthony and Frank, and multiple school children creating their peace messages.

Pelting Barrels - Scott Furman and Community

This project has been made possible in part by a grant administered by the Bergen County Department of Parks, Division of Historic and Cultural Affairs from funds granted by the New Bailiwick of jersey State Council on the Arts and past the Jack Flamholz Water Sustainability Projection.

Harmony Garden - Erika and Elizabeth Herman

The Harmony Garden was created by Erika and Elizabeth Herman, Teaneck residents and students of the Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, CT. This projection was made possible by a Norton Fellowship Grant from Loomis Chaffee.  This projection used recycled and natural materials to make musical instruments, combining a love of music and a passion for sustainable living. As you travel through the garden, browse other QR codes to learn nigh each instrument, how information technology was fabricated, what materials were used and how to brand the all-time audio.  You tin learn more about each musical instrument in the Harmony Garden HERE.

Turtle Peace Labyrinth - Ariana Burgess

Turtle Peace Labyrinth - Ariana Burgess
2003-2004 Recycled concrete debris, living plant cloth

Begun in 2003 and completed in 2004, Ariana Burgess of Camino de Paz worked with hundreds of volunteers, families and community groups to build this oasis of peace and contemplation at the disturbed eye of the Salvation's lands. Ariana was invited and supported by the Puffin Foundation and the Rosenstein family unit. Ms. Burgess with artist-in-residence Richard Mills truly divined the location for this piece of work. Walking through the overgrown and heavily shaded wetland forest, they saw light coming through a round immigration in the canopy.

Investigating further they came upon a rubble and invasive vine covered clearing in the woods aflutter with cabbage white butterflies. Ariana knew this was the place, the heart of the Conservancy lands that truly expressed the genius of the place - the genius loci. And then with extraordinary labor from the customs - moving hundreds of dumped pieces of heavy highway concrete (NJ rubblestone!) - began the process of paying homage to the Lenape presence and the spirit of healing and renewal that the Conservancy has dedicated itself to. "The place where nature, history and fine art come full circle." Come walk the Labyrinth for yourself.

Run into Camino de Paz Labyrinths at: www.caminodepaz.org/artist.html

Turtle Peace Labyrinth Gate, Fence and Tower - David Robinson

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The Turtle Peace Labyrinth is defined by a beautiful structural piece of artwork designed past David Robinson of Natural Edge LLC. The Gates project was made possible in office by a grant administered by the Bergen  County Division of Cultural & Celebrated Diplomacy from funds granted past the New Jersey State Council on the Arts in 2017. The project defines the area of the Labyrinth and creates an inviting yet secluded area for meditation, creativity, and peaceful  reflection in nature. Additionally, the new fencing blends with the natural environs allowing visitors to meet by the debate into the rest of the park. The Belfry provides a place to balance in the Labyrinth, when you visit make sure to wait up to encounter the sky through the ingenious skylight.

Concrete Jungle - Richard Kirk Mills

Concrete Jungle - Richard Kirk Mills
2004 Recycled and sandblasted highway physical

Creative person Rick Mills says "Give me history, merely give me humor - this is the one-liner vs. the deep narrative approach."

An homage to both a favorite musician (Bob Marley), and the Scottish physical poet, sculptor, gardener and conceptual artist Ian Hamilton Finlay and NY graffiti artist John Fekner, Rick offers this recycled, sandblasted hunk of highway debris every bit a trailside caption and commentary on the piles of concrete historically dumped in the Conservancy.

Rick has done extensive inquiry into the environmental and cultural history of the Hackensack River Valley and its watershed, including Teaneck Creek. To reveal this history to the public – and to provoke questions concerning past and hereafter land employ decisions - he has created a series of thirty-one collaged, non-linear, multi-layered narrative signworks. These artworks take been deployed along the Hackensack River and will be part of the final phase of construction of the Fycke Lane Entrance Project.

To see more than of Rick'south fine art visit: www.richardkirkmills.com.

MIGRATION MILEPOSTS - LYNNE HULL

Migration Mileposts - Lynne Hull
2004 8 recycled, sandblasted and painted 200lb slabs of concrete highway debris

Migration Mileposts link communities from Canada to Due south America through our shared wild animals: migrating birds that employ the Atlantic flyway.

Artist Lynne Hull, "I believe that the creativity of artists can be applied to existent world problems and can accept an effect on urgent social and environmental issues. My sculpture and installations provide shelter, nutrient, h2o or space for wildlife, as eco-atonement for their loss of habitat to human encroachment. Research and consultation are essential to project success. I adopt straight collaboration with wildlife specialists, ecology interpreters, landscape architects, and local people for design integration."

At Teaneck Creek Park, "NJ Rubblestone", (a.k.a.hunks of discarded highway concrete) has been recycled through sandblasted stencils which tell of the travels of viii bird species observed here.

Visit Lynne'due south website at www.eco-art.org

Walking Copse Talking Trees - Richard Kirk Mills

Walking Copse Talking Trees - Richard Kirk Mills
2006 31 zinc etching plates

Meant as a celebratory twist on tree labeling, these zinc etching plates give vox to the highly agile nature of our trees. "Then often people tend to overlook copse, taking their obvious rootedness as passivity, when trees are really super-active: engaged in purifying air, cycling countless gallons of water and contributing in fundamental means to life on earth both physically, spiritually and to our emotional well being."

Teaneck Creek Conservancy artist in residence, Rick Mills wanted a collaborative project that could involve his Long Island University printmaking students along with local students. The projection at the Conservancy involved more 80 fourth graders in Dolly Bohnert'south art classes at Hawthorne Simple School in Teaneck. The children did research on the tree species on site and fabricated the artwork that was transferred onto photo-etching plates at the C. W. Post Printmaking Workshop at LIU More 31 plates were installed during the Leap of 2006 and will serve as a focal point for walks and talks nearly the changing nature of tree species at the Conservancy.

"Equally trees are our oldest living globe-companions they have tended to pick up a lot of history and associated stories", Rick points out.

Five Pipes - Eduardo Rabel

Five Pipes - Eduardo Rabel
2008-2009 Five recyceld concrete construction pipes, acrylic pigment

The almost ambitious EcoArt project undertaken by TCC then far is the transformation of the 5 Pipes. These five-human foot diameter concrete "monoliths" are idea to be drainage pipes left over from construction of the NJ Turnpike. In 2008 TCC commissioned muralist Eduardo Alexander Rabel to atomic number 82 schoolhouse children and volunteers in creating a pictorial history and future vision of Teaneck Creek Park. The v pipes were designated to represent historic eras: prehistory, European colonization during the 18th Century, industrialization of the 19th Century, the 20th Century, and the Future. The inside of the pipes depicted the human being aspects of each era and the outside represented the environmental features or deposition associated with each time period. Working though the entire schoolhouse yr 2008-09 Eduardo completed this terrific projection concluding fall, and the installation was dedicated by Bergen County Executive Dennis McNearny. The Future Pipe illustrates two pathways – a sustainable surround or continuing degradation – we hope the children'south sustainable vision comes to be!

To see more of Eduardo'due south work visit http://eduardoalexanderrabel.yolasite.com/

Fycke Lane Archway - Richard Kirk Mills, Blair Hines, Jane Ingram Allen, with local students and teachers

Proposed past Teaneck Creek artist-in-residence Rick Mills and landscape architect Blair Hines in 2002, the Fycke Lane Entrance idea was presented in an piano accordion volume format to indicate the project's sweep. This substantial identify-making characteristic is intended to "marking and protect the Conservancy's 350 foot long Fycke Lane public confront; celebrate and reveal the land'southward deep cultural and ecology history through interpretive signage and student artwork; provide visual linkage to neighboring schools and the community; and to provide a point of welcoming archway into the Conservancy." Through a process of collaboration and refinement, plans include:

  • A metaphoric Fycke (a "V" shaped Lenape fish or animal trap) fence synthetic with recycled concrete debris – historically dumped on site, wood, vines, twigs and planted with living vines, ornamented with educatee fine art in the form of ceramics, handmade paper and verse.

  • A depression purlieus wall, 30" high, made from recycled concrete including openings for:

  • Eight 2 10 iv pes sign stanchions carrying collaged narrative artwork revealing the land's environmental and cultural history that inquire viewers to question the lens through which they run into our surround. These 8 "canvases" will exist available for rotating displays of futurity student and visiting artist projects.

  • An ornamental crosswalk connecting the Salvation with the community and the middle schoolhouse directly across Fycke Lane.

Ephemeral EcoArt Installations

PaperCrete Beehive - Ben Pranger

PaperCrete Beehive - Ben Pranger
2015 paper, physical, natural objects, and wire

PaperCrete Beehive: In the Fall of 2015 Artist, Ben Pranger, worked with local 8 thursday graders to create hive-like structures out of paper, plant natural objects, wire armatures and concrete. Ben and the local students visited the Teaneck Creek Conservancy and drew inspiration from the newly added beehive. The installation is on display at the Fycke Lane Entrance, fastened to trees to replicate the intricate formation of honeycombs and hive structure. For more of Ben Pranger's work visit:

http://benpranger.com/almost

Woodland Animal Carvings - Anthony Santella

Woodland Fauna Carvings - Anthony Santella
2010 Carved, recycled wooden tree trunks

In the fall of 2010 Sculptor Anthony Santella carved local animals into the trunks of fallen copse at Teaneck Creek Conservancy. Anthony offered demonstrations of carving with traditional hand tools equally he worked on several large sculptures that will remain on permanent brandish at the Salvation.

Several large locust trees came down in a storm, which uprooted hundreds of copse throughout Teaneck. Anthony was inspired past the sight of the trunks lying by the path and envisioned them carved into partially stylized animate being forms equally a celebration of the diverse, often unseen and unappreciated, wildlife that exists in the area.

A Reddish-tailed Hawk and a Turtle were carved into sections of whole tree trunks, using traditional mitt tools, manus saws, chisels, gouges and mallet. The carvings are left untreated, and allowed to naturally weather, ultimately disuse, and returning to the soil over the course of decades.

To run into more than of Anthony's work visit world wide web.santella.org/anthony/

Arbor - Ursula Clark (Archived)

Arbor - Ursula Clark
2003 Phragmites (common cerise), twine

Ms. Clark creates site specific environmental sculpture. For "Arbor," she created the sculpture entirely from materials she found at the Conservancy. She states that "The goal is to create from these collected elements a infinite withal unknown. That is the excitement of the journeying."

The creative person named the sculpture "Arbor" every bit an invitation to the surrounding forest -- role of the all-encompassing freshwater forested wetlands of the Teaneck Creek Conservancy -- and the forest preservation and stewardship concepts that are embodied in "Arbor Day."

The artist's conception of the sculpture included an image of children planting and caring for copse during an Arbor Day outcome. The artist's intention for the slice was to create a resting identify for eco-park visitors that would provide shelter and shade, and foster contemplation. Ms. Clark, who was assisted by fine arts students from Fairleigh Dickinson University, arranged the materials "to create a infinite people enter into, pass through, and become part of as elements of nature themselves. Homo beings cannot exist separated from nature."

Windows on the Park - Rachel Banai (Archived)

Windows on the Park - Rachel Banai 2009 and 2010 Photography and recycled window frames

Windows on the Park - Rachel Banai
2009 and 2010 Photography and recycled window frames

Internationally-exhibited photographer Rachel Banai and her students in the Puffin Camera Club installation "Windows on the Park – Public/Private Space". The bear witness, which hangs each bound for ane calendar month, features the work of 18 photographers who have cataloged the park's natural beauty and recorded its metamorphosis from dumpsite to restored oasis.

In an unusual and provocative move, the images in the show are framed in salvaged wooden window sashes and hung outdoors in the meadow area of the park. "The show is an exploration of public and private space," says curator Rachel Banai, "The windows take been removed from the walls of a dwelling house, - walls that claim to protect an private's private space – and transplanted into the imaginary gallery walls of an open-air meadow." The viewing public is challenged to determine if what they run into is an prototype or a reflection. Are they "looking at" or "looking through"?

Heron Glyph - Valentina DuBasky (ARCHIVED)

Heron Glyph - Valentina DuBasky
2004 twigs and leaves

The Atlantic Flyway Projection, by artist Valentina DuBasky, is a large-scale geoglyph/earthwork that was created on-site at the Teaneck Creek Conservancy in Oct, 2004.

The earthwork depicts images of a heron that may be seen from the air, as well as from footpaths inside the park. Suggesting a correspondence betwixt the birds that fly through the New York and New Bailiwick of jersey area each year along the Atlantic Flyway and the visitors to the Teaneck Creek Salvation, the earthwork was synthetic entirely from natural materials found within the Conservancy.

Dear Motel - Brandon Ballengee (ARCHIVED)

Love Cabin - Brandon Ballengee
2004 cloth, insects, seining nets

In "Love Motel" Bio-creative person Brandon Ballengee created a temporary outdoor installation using ultra-violet (black) light to written report and photograph arthropods (spiders, moths, beetles, etc.) and other nocturnal creatures. Students and their families and the public were invited to participate in this research. Attracted to the light, these creatures mated and fed on the sculpture. Moths released chemical pheromones to concenter mates and consequently "paint" the piece, while spiders spun webs adding their own contribution to the piece of work.

This ongoing series of sculptures has previously been created during 2001 through the present in Asia, Central America, Europe, and Due north America. In Imaging the Species of Teaneck Creek students and the public went Fishing! Using a trawling technique with fine mesh plankton and seining nets, participants collected, examined, discussed, identified, and drew diverse species of microscopic and macro organisms using the scientific method. This activeness culminated in a give-and-take on the aquatic food chain of the Teaneck Creek followed by students performing stages of the spider web.

Exploring the boundaries between art, science and technology, Brandon Ballengée creates multidisciplinary works out of information generated from ecological field-trips and laboratory research. Since 1996, Ballengée has collaborated with numerous scientists to conduct main biological inquiry and advanced imaging procedures. He was the showtime American Artist to be invited as an creative person in residence at the Natural History Museum in London.

To learn more about Brandon'southward fine art come across: http://world wide web.greenmuseum.org/ballengee

Pigs in Poke - Kerry Mills (ARCHIVED)

Pigs in Poke - Kerry Mills
2004 foraged materials found in woods

"I play a game with my v year former son. Nosotros employ sticks to marker a 1 foot foursquare on the ground and then we count the things going on in that square. We count bugs and plants and evidence of otherbugs, plants and animals that accept passed through. The Teaneck Creek Park as a small nature preserve, makes information technology an ideal site for witnessing homo interaction with 'nature' and for noticing the network of connections between things natural and un-natural, native and invasive, pastand present. Information technology is to the planet what the one square foot is to our picayune homestead.

At every bend and obstruction in the Creek, a collection forms, consisting of constitute and tree detritus and all style of homo litter. I see the Creek and all of the tributaries every bit symbolic of the passage of time. The sculptures I've created for the park are made from these collections of creek refuse.

They are animate being forms suggesting the emergence of new life from this abused environment. Each creatureis formed from things that served some purpose (a soda bottle, a broom, a leaf, a stick), and were then cast off. Like a park that was once a dump that was once a wetland wilderness, my animals heighten the questions: what will survive our incessant amending of nature and what aspects of us volition flourish in this altered world."

Conflicting Beauty - Rob Staab (ARCHIVED)

Alien Beauty - Rob Staab 2007 Phragmites (common red), twine

Alien Beauty - Rob Staab
2007 Phragmites (mutual cerise), twine

I want to brand art that is office of nature", says Roy Staab of the etheral sculpture that he created from reeds in the Teaneck Creek Conservancy. Staab sought out the perfect location within the wetland environs of the conservancy for the approximately 60 foot loftier, 100 foot long and 50 pes broad installation, finding it at the convergence of two trails where a cottonwood tree stands. Assisted past 4 students and artists, he arranged the reeds that he gathered from the surrounding area with nylon cord. He then created an arrow by suspending five lines from a fork in the cottonwood, which fan downwards 16 feet before doubling into x lines that swoop downward across the space and then curve back up to attach to other trees at varying heights. The curve forms a swaying ceiling meant to requite a sense of protection to anyone standing beneath. Since 1979, the Milwaukee-based artist has created large calibration ephemeral installations in nature using found materials such as reeds, bamboo, snow, stones and lines drawn in the earth. His creations are unproblematic geometries born of place, the materials used and the local cultures of the places he visits around the world. The fragile nature of the materials themselves, and the relentless tug of gravity which inevitably destroys them serve as reminders of the delicate and transitory nature of life. Like three-dimensional line drawings made of and in the landscape, Roy Staab'southward sculptures diagram the ties and relationships which bring us together.

Life in the Meadows: The People and History of Teaneck - Sarah Davol, Tim Blunk, Rachel Banai, R. K. Mills (ARCHIVED)

Life in the Meadows: The People and History of Teaneck - Sarah Davol, Tim Blunk, Rachel Banai, R. K. Mills
2006 Photographic portraits, oral history, artwork, and artifacts documenting the inhabitants of the environs of Teaneck Creek and the NJ Meadows

Curated and organized past Tim Blunk with Rachel Banai, Sarah Davol, and Richard Kirk Mills. This project was supported by a grant from the Bergen County Segmentation of Cultural & Historic Affairs.

In 2006, Sarah Davol, a Teaneck, NJ resident, composer, and musician, who has written original music for special events at the Conservancy, conceived the idea of telling the stories of long time Meadowlands residents in the Teaneck Creek neighborhood. Davol is a member of the Teaneck Creek Salvation'south EcoArt Committee. Davol and creative person Richard Kirk Mills facilitated the participation of neighborhood residents in the taking of their portraits and telling of their families' histories for Life in the Meadows. Rachel Banai and her students made the portraits of local Meadowlands residents at the Conservancy. Other subjects and family unit artifacts were photographed by Ms. Banai, Richard Mills, and Tim Blunk in their homes. Sound recordings were fabricated of the subjects' stories and family folklore by Mills and Davol. In the very successful exhibition, the subjects' portraits were grouped with family unit artifacts, photos, and stories in "shrines" that illuminate and celebrate each family'southward history. Distinguished longtime Meadowlands resident John R. Quinn, artist and author of Fields of Sun and Grass: An Artist's Journal of the New Jersey Meadowlands. lead a walk and talk at the Salvation.