FROM ART TO ACTION ON BERKELEY CREEKS - HEADWATERS SITE
In partnership with Friends of Five Creeks and River of Words
Berkeley, CA; March 18, 2006
A dozen Berkeley High School Environmental Science students, along with their teacher Mardi Mertens and her family, joined me at the headwaters of Berkeley's Codornices Creek. After Friends of Five Creeks President Susan Schwartz introduced the site, we explored, collected trash, and created art together.
The sloping site is dry at the top, moist in the middle, and has a spring-fed rivulet at the bottom. Adjacent to the site runs the Lower Glendale Path, renovated by the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association. This map shows our site, which is in the midst of a residential neighborhood.
For more photos, see the event photo gallery.
Mud, Garbage, Rocks, Plants and Art
The headwaters of Codornices Creek was muddy,
It looked chaotic and cruddy,
We cleaned up the garbage, and had a good time,
Made art out of rocks and sticks that were divine,
Out of unrefined nature art makes it a habitat for humanity,
And all human kind.
-Evan Mertens, 3/18/06