Mesquite Mile, Lubbock Texas
Happily announcing the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has approved Texas Tech University (TTU) for the Mesquite Mile, a public art project located in Lubbock, TX. Our goal is to foster ecological resilience and an enduring sense of place through socially engaged placemaking.
Mesquite Mile Team: Erin Charpentier, Kim Karlsrud, Travis Neel, Daniel Phillips, and Leehu Loon (Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture).
Flourishing Los Angeles: Activists reclaim urban spaces through guerrilla gardening written by Brandelyn Clark for the Cronkite News.
In February 2024, Commonstudio’s Kim Karlsrud had a unique opportunity to attend the Women’s Tree Climbing workshop, founded by the amazing Melissa LeVangie Ingersoll and Bear LeVangie. A thought-provoking NYT article “New Englands Trees are sick. They Need More Tree Doctors.” inspired a successful scholarship application. This three day event was conducted in the town of Wimberly, TX on a 126-acre hideaway on the scenic Blanco River. The site offered amazing trees, stargazing and sweeping views of the Blanco River. The workshop was attended by a range of seasoned arborists, urban foresters, and municipal employees.
In June, we completed Interlude, a month long family residency in Hudson, NY, along with artist Brandon Ng and his family. During this time, we engaged with local artists and enjoyed Art Omi, DIA Beacon, MASS Moca, and explored new project concepts and opportunities related to the material and narrative potential of soil.
We are happy to report that we have begun a new chapter of our academic life with a recent transition to the University of Oregon!
Daniel will join the Department of Landscape Architecture as an Assistant Professor on the Tenure Track, while Kim will be a visiting assistant professor in the College of Design. We look forward to new collaborative partnerships and projects alone the west coast and beyond.
In August 2024, Commonstudio participated in a group show at CYNK Studios (Ypsilanti Michigan), along with Sally Clegg, Erin McKenna, Abhishek Narula. The show’s theme centered around the function and meaning of fountains, and the piece is titled “ Fulfillment (Field Study No. 2)”. The piece consists of 10lbs of replenished chocolate rocks, resupplied as consumed.
Commonstudio’s collaborative urban afforestation project “The Mesquite Mile” was recently exhibited in two gallery shows. The first was the 25th Anniversary celebration of the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (LHUCA) in downtown Lubbock, TX. This eclectic group show focused on the many local, regional, and international artists that have exhibited at LHUCA since its opening in 1997. The show opened on October 7th, 2022 as a part of Lubbock’s first Friday art walk event. The project was also included in the 64th Annual Permian Basin Juried Art Exhibition held at the Ellen Noël Art Museum in Odessa, TX. Both shows featured a 15 minute documentary film depicting the migration of a mature Mesquite tree (Prosopis glandulosa) as it makes a journey from rural to urban context in west Texas. More context on the work, and the film itself can be viewed HERE.
This piece is one part of a larger, long-term project in collaboration with Travis Neel and Erin Charpentier, and is supported in part by an Interchange Grant in 2021. Interchange is a program of the Mid-America Arts Alliance and funded by the Mellon Foundation. In spring of 2022, MAAA held a three day convening in Kansas City, KS which brought us together with other Interchange grantees to discuss the nature of socially-engaged creative practice. We were honored to be a part of it and met some great new friends.
Commonstudio’s collaborative work featured in a group exhibition APPROXIMATING THESE ARID LANDS, which opened on March 28, 2022, and ran through May 2, 2022.
The Mesquite Mile is a multi-phase project based in Lubbock, TX. It aims to relocate regionally historic Mesquites (genus Prosopis) from commercial agricultural land (where they are maligned and removed) to Lubbock’s urban core (where they can be properly managed as assets). The project utilizes art as a tool to create a drought resistant shade canopy and public food forest—converting lawns and surplus space into interconnected rainwater harvesting earthworks that reimagine the narrative of this vital keystone species. See more about the work by visiting the Interchange Artist Grant website and our collaborators Travis Neel and Erin Charpentier at workabout.space/
Partners include:
Heart of Lubbock Neighborhood Association—The organization will assist in community outreach and education—helping to locate families and landlord participants.
Heart of Lubbock Community Gardeners—The Gardeners will donate time and will help with community outreach, education and food forest stewardship.
Texas Tech University School of Art will provide in-kind volunteer support through service-learning coursework, engaging students with the construction and maintenance of the food forest.
Texas Tech School of Landscape Architecture will provide in-kind support to the project by providing service-learning coursework, engaging students with the planning and design of food forest plantings.
See more on our instagram page for the project
Zoom fatigue notwithstanding, Commonstudio founders have had the pleasure of two pandemic presentations.
The first was an artist talk, given by Kim Karlsrud for Graceland Universtiy’s school of visual and Performing arts faculty and students. In it she shared recent work, including a recent gallery-based installation entitled Large and Round When Popped (2020). This work consisted of millions of popcorn kernals deployed in a sprawling field condition on the floor of the University’s Constance Gallery.
The second was a conference presentation for the TNOC Festival, organized by TheNatureofCities.com. Here we screened a 2017 short documentary film entitled 11 Palms to an audience of like-minded urban ecologists, designers, and artists. A lively discussion about the nature of care, and the care of nature followed.
Below, Kim Karlsrud discusses her process for a recent solo exhibition at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (LHUCA). The show ran between December 4 – January 30, 2021 in the John F. Lott Gallery. Click HERE for more information.
