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“Green Tie” affair benefits FLC Environmental Center
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Michael Rendon, director of the Fort Lewis College Environmental Center, sits in the office, located upstairs in the College Union building. The center, which is available to the community as well as students, will be celebrating 13 years this Thursday night at the Durango Arts Center with a benefit film festival, auction, and food and drink./Photo by Todd Newcomer.
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by
Ken Wright
Got environmental questions? Get in touch with the Fort Lewis College Environmental Center.
Want to have a great time while helping the Environmental Center? Then attend the EC's annual fund-raiser, "A Reel Environmental Experience."
This year's "Reel Experience" will be held Thursday, Dec. 2, at the Durango Arts Center. The event's theme is "Art in the Environment," and it will feature the film "Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time." The night also will include live music, short films, food and beverages from local restaurants, and a silent auction of local art.
It is a formal "green-tie event," but "formal" is defined Durango-style, says Environmental Center Director Michael Rendon. "That might mean just dark socks under your Birkenstocks," he laughs.
One of the goals of the event is to remind the community that as an environmental clearinghouse, the FLC Environmental Center is "not just for students, it's for everyone," says Rendon. "If we don't have it, we can find it for you."
The Center, now in its 13th year, is housed on the second floor of the College Union Building, on the FLC campus. It's a small, two-room space that is packed-to-full with files, books, desks, a sofa and whatever else will fit. The Center is run by 11 staffers, mostly work-study students. Rendon is the EC's only full-time employee.
It might be small, but the Environmental Center is the largest environmental resource in the Four Corners, says Rendon, who is in his fifth year there as director.
On campus, students and faculty use the center for research and planning, but it also serves the campus in a variety of other ways. It runs two weeklong events each year - Earth Week in the spring, and Population Awareness Week in the fall. During the year, the center partners with other groups to bring in speakers and also sponsors "Making Waves," a local-issues radio show on KDUR (Thursdays 9 - 9:30 a.m.).
Year round, the Environmental Center manages the campus recycling program, which is ahead of the Durango program in that it accepts plastic, batteries, cell phones and inkjet cartridges. The center has also lobbied successfully to get the campus to switch to nontoxic cleaning materials and the cafeteria to serve James Ranch Beef and organic coffee.
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“Land artist” Andy Goldsworthy will be the subject of a feature length film at Thursday night’s benefit.
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Year round, the Environmental Center manages the campus recycling program, which is ahead of the Durango program in that it accepts plastic, batteries, cell phones and inkjet cartridges. The center has also lobbied successfully to get the campus to switch to nontoxic cleaning materials and the cafeteria to serve James Ranch Beef and organic coffee.
The Environmental Center also works in the community off campus, though, says Rendon. When the City of Durango was looking into converting city vehicles to biodiesel, it called the Environmental Center for background information. "Good Dirt Radio," a syndicated radio show about environmental issues, uses the center for research. And when LPEA wanted ideas on how to get out the word on its Green Energy Program, it called the Environmental Center.
The Environmental Center also produced, with funding from the First National Bank of Durango, the "Durango Green Map," a free guide to "earth friendly businesses in Durango."
Anyone can use the resources at the center, which can be accessed via its new web site. At www.envcenter.fortlewis.edu, visitors can search the center's extensive library, which includes 1,800 books, 150 videos and 15 periodicals. The site also has a calendar of campus, community and regional eco-events.
The center is funded by student fees and some grants, but Rendon says over the past four years, the center's budget has been cut 24 percent. Hence the center's "Reel Environmental Experience" fund raiser, which began three years ago.
"It's a fund raiser, but it's also a celebration, a chance to get together and have fun while supporting a good organization," says Rendon.
The centerpiece of the night is the full-length film about Scottish sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. But this is no normal "sculptor"; Goldsworthy has been called a "land artist" - his art is to create in-situ sculptures in natural places with wild materials, including wood, leaves, stones and ice. The artwork is then left in place to be reclaimed by nature. His goal, he says, is to "see something you never saw before, that was always there, but you were blind to it."
A series of large-format photo books have preserved Goldsworthy's art, but the award-winning film by German filmmaker Thomas Riedelsheimer goes deeper, following the artist for a year as he conceives and creates his wild visions.
The theme for the rest of the night is "local." The night also will include two short films, "Navajo Dream 3" and "The Magic of Dumpsters," which was produced by Fort Lewis student S. Graham Pierce. The silent auction will feature works from local artists, including Shan Wells, Don Ed and Nancy Richmond. The event also will offer food and drink from Carver Brewing Co. and Mahogany Grille, and music from local musicians Richard White and Pete Pheteplace.
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