WATER, Andrea Reynosa, Narrowsburg, NY 2011 Contributed Photo

Oddly, the word WATER takes on subjectivity, perhaps even vagueness unless you’re living in an area where water is being threatened by natural gas drilling and a Halliburton developed technique called fracking. Because water is such a primary part of our existence it’s almost impossible to grasp what it means. As someone in Yellow Springs, Ohio recently shared with me during a Trailer Talk, as we were trying to come up with a Bill of Rights for Water said, “We Are Water”. Not only us of course but all that surrounds us on this planet Earth. As our bodies gush with it and our tears expel it, as our sweat drops it and every breath we take expands this moisture around us this piece, Water by Artist Andrea Reynosa simply, boldly and beautifully makes a one-word declarative poem about it.

WATER, Andrea Reynosa, Narrowsburg, NY 2011 Contributed Photo

The art coming out of the fight to stop it by those living on the shale in upstate New York is not only impressive but entirely inspiring and an indication of the role of art in this movement to fight the multi-national corporations and express personally what’s at stake. Andrea Reynosa is a multi-media artist working with sculpture, time based process earth and flow projects in the Delaware River Basin of the Sullivan County Catskills of NY. She often uses the land as subject and canvas. This piece, Water is a one-word statement planted by her out of buckwheat that not only signifies the subject of water itself through the use of language but also requires it as well to create the living sculpture. The piece undulates on the pasture where it was grown (installed) and changes and will decompose into the ground as winter approaches. This installation created on her family farm located in the Delaware River Valley just outside the town of Narrowsburg, New York is located in the heart of the debate about fracking. The Delaware River that runs between NY and PA is in close proximity to the piece. The river was declared one of the country’s most threatened rivers last year because of the threat from proposed gas drilling and Reynosa’s work is dealing with our connection to the land, what we can produce and collaborate with it and the the basis for it  – WATER. Does your city have enough water?