It Is Easy Being Green

Chris Fennell constructing Cedar Moth

Environmental art is one of those slippery terms that doesn't give you quite enough to get what it is: It's art that's, um, in the environment? Of the environment? For the environment? Rather than make you puzzle it out for yourself, Austin Green Art is hosting a summerlong, citywide exhibition that shows you what environmental art can be, and it's launching the exhibit with a weekend of events that will add to your understanding of this increasingly popular art form. The exhibit, "Green Wave," offers seven works in five locations across the city, ranging from an archway of harvested cedar installed by Birmingham, Ala., artist Chris Fennell on the grounds of the Austin Museum of Art at Laguna Gloria to a glow-in-the-dark land drawing made with marble dust and phosphorescent materials in Duncan Park by Atlanta, Ga., artist Martha Whittington to a 1950s school bus converted by Austin artist Roisel Ramirez into a working video screening room at 13th and Chicon streets. You can meet all the artists in the exhibition at a concert and mixer Friday, June 10, 8-11pm, at the Whole Foods Market on Lamar. (Michael Fracasso and Guy Forsyth provide the music; cover is $20.) The next morning, from 10am to noon at Whole Foods, kids get to create a large-scale artwork out of produce packing crates decorated by area grade-school students. Then, 5-8pm, a free symposium at City Hall will explain what environmental art is and what its place in Austin's cultural and literal landscape is. "Green Wave" runs through Sept. 10. For more information, visit www.austingreenart.org.