Soil is a critical natural resource, as important to our quality of life as clean air and water. We need to protect it and improve it.
That’s the message the Cornell Soil Health Lab has delivered to audiences far and wide through our soil painting outreach program. It started with World Soil Day in 2015, when our lab manager Kirsten Kurtz organized a community celebration in the lobby of Mann Library at Cornell University, inviting passersby to try their hands at soil painting. We have since shared our love of soil at similar community outreach events.
More information:
- The Art of Soil: Painting with Earth – Homestead Brooklyn video
- FAO soil painting tutorial
- Kirsten Kurtz’s soil painting website
- Soil painting time-lapse videos
Soil painting highlights
Three Sisters in Soil (World Soil Day celebration, 2017)
This painting, generously funded by the Soil and Crop Sciences Section, School of Integrative Plant Science, won the university division of the soil painting competition sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
- Cornell University, I.E.S. Pontepedriña Secondary School and Glendale High School win first place at FAO/GSP’s Soil Painting Competition 2017
- Cornell artists win global soil painting competition
- Dec. 5 global soil painting competition illustrates soil’s vital role – Cornell Chronicle
- Soil painting at Cornell highlights importance of resource and inspires global competition – Ithaca Voice
- FAO Soil Painting Competition
Roses (Community soil painting event at the Ithaca Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance, 2018)
For the Love of Soil (World Soil Day celebration, 2015)
For the love of dirt, Dec. 10 event offers soil painting (Cornell Chronicle)
Finger Lakes Bounty (Ithaca Reggae Fest, 2018)
