Dirt is Beautiful: Ink Making, Screenprinting, and Soil Health Education

In this family-friendly program, artist and activist Mary Tremonte will lead a forest walk in the Highland Creek trail system to collect soil to sift and mix into ink. Participants will then make screen-printed posters with the ink in the Plant Parenthood studio at the Doris McCarthy Gallery, part of the current exhibition Art Farm. This hands-on experience blends artmaking with important discussions about the geological make-up and histories of the Highland Creek, industry and contamination, Indigenous relationships to the land, and remediation and soil-building techniques.

Participants will take home their prints and add copies to the Plant Parenthood display wall at the gallery. Copies of Mary's two-part soil education zine series Dirt Tales will be available to read and to purchase.

This all-ages event is free and open to the public, all are welcome. Space limited, registration required. If you have accommodation needs, please let us know through the registration form or contact dmg.utsc@utoronto.ca.

The program will begin from the Doris McCarthy Gallery at 12:45 pm. Please dress for the weather, and wear good walking shoes and pants that can be tucked into socks (for avoiding scratches/poison ivy/tick and other insect bites if going off path). Sunscreen and bug repellent recommended, as well as a water bottle.

Part of this program will be held outdoors, and it will go forward rain or shine. Participants can choose how much of the valley they would like to explore during the program. The Ma Moosh Ka Win Trail is wheelchair accessible; the trail that continues beyond is an uneven, dirt path. This program will include opportunities to sit down/rest.

Mary Tremonte is an artist, activist, educator, and DJ based in Pittsburgh, with a piece of her heart in Toronto. A founding member of Justseeds Artists' Cooperative, she works with "printmaking in the expanded field," including printstallation, interactive silkscreen printing in public space, and wearable artist multiples, such as bandanas and embroidered badges. As DJ Mary Mack, she strives to make safe(r) spaces on dance floors for embodying a body politic with pleasure. Mary is co-organizer, with artist Vee Adams, of Queer Ecology Hanky Project, an ongoing exhibition of over 130 artist-made bandanas. In 2022 she completed Dirt Is Beautiful, a public art project in collaboration with Grow Pittsburgh, through Shiftworks' Environment, Health, and Public Art Initiative. Through her work, she endeavors to create temporary utopias and sustainable commons through pedagogy, collaboration, visual pleasure and serious fun.