Friends Annual Meeting 2021

​The Annual Meeting 2021, April 7, virtual and live online, attracted close to 100 participants. Drawing points were our keynote speaker Emily Arthur, of Eastern Band Cherokee descent and Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and chair of the printmaking area, and Preserve director Gary Brown. At the meeting, Friends Vice president Seth McGee introduced the new slate of candidates for the Board of directors and conducted an online poll election. New to the Board are Dane Gallagher, Signe Holtz, and Anne Pearce. Also, Matt Chotlos, Steve Sellwood and Will Vuyk began their second terms. Doris Dubielzig, Gisela Kutzbach and Lillian Tong departed from the Board after completing their terms. In a special tribute, MJ Morgan remembered President Steve Sentoff who had passed away unexspectedly a few days before the meeting. The entire event was organized by Olympia Mathiarapanam, Annual meeting chair and MC, and Doris Dubielzig. Our media expert Tom Bryan ran the online meeting flawlessly and with support by Will Vuyk. Watch the recording of the meeting on Youtube. Report here by Gisela Kutzbach.

Olympia Mathiarapanam, Annual Meeting chair and MC

Preserve Director Gary Brown reported on essential maintenance work in the Preserve during COVID-19, presented a summary of the new Strategic Plan for the Preserve, and previewed the 2021 work season in the Preserve. Volunteers will again be able to help with restoration, garlic mustard pull and plantings, following COVID protocols and registering for events. The Friends Prairie Interns will again work in the Preserve. Gary also previewed the schedule for developing the new Preserve Masterplan, to be completed in Spring 2022.

Emily Arthur, of Eastern Cherokee descent, growing up in the ancestral mountainous lands of North Carolina and Georgia, has a particular interest in observations relating to displacements of species from their traditional places of living, be it birds, animals, or plant species, and the displacements of native people, as well. Her specific message is:

"Art and science share the responsibility of observation and witness. It is through observation that science gives us proof of our material make up. It is through observation that art gives us material proof of our spiritual make up. Encountering a great work of art or a great leap in science changes our perception; it asks us to see and then to see once again, more deeply.”

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Arthur illustrated this insight with her case study of the push by developers in California to remove the California gnatcatcher from the list of endangered species, disregarding results of genetic studies in zoological research. Being able to view the laboratory collection of these birds, Arthur transformed her observations into prints (one of these prints is now mounted on the atrium ceiling of the Madison Hilton at Monona Terrace.) Prints, Arthur demonstrated with her slideshow, can lead to a lasting emotional response in the viewer. Printmaking, she maintained, is an extension of observations. 
Next, Arthur showed how manipulation of data themselves can deny the truth, and is often used to establish a certain supremacy, usually motivated by the prospect of making a profit. The manipulated  observations then can “justify” the elimination of natural habitats of birds as well as other animals and plants, and by extension, the suppression and displacements of human populations. In her art work, she illustrated this insight with California gnatcatchers cast in bronze and bound with ropes, birds without voice, and in parallel, by incorporating in her prints documents of native people expelled from their homelands. For both, birds and people, the ideas of home and place are wrapped up in who we are.