Sustainability takes root in US art schools as green push intensifies

“It’s a difficult task to be a sustainable artist,” says Claudia Hernández Romero, associate professor of sustainability at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles and director of the school’s minor in sustainability, which seeks to help future artists and designers think about the impact of their choices in materials and processes on the environment. “The art world can be wasteful.”Otis is one of a growing number of independent art colleges and university art departments trying to be part of the solution. They are offering courses in sustainability—defined by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”—in addition to minors and majors. Art-making leaves behind a sizeable carbon footprint, since gaining a mastery of art and developing an artistic style are the results of considerable trial and error. This involves making works that don’t live up to the artist’s expectations and may get thrown away.Otis’s sustainability minor takes a global approach to the positive impacts that artists should pursue through their work (“environmental, economic and social justice”, Romero says), rather than just how to limit the waste they generate in their studios. There is, for instance, a course in human ecology, which Romero describes as “how people are connected to the environment and how artists can help build community”, and another on science and sustainable design, which holds particular interest for the students in environmental design, digital media, fashion and toy design, who represent the majority of those taking this minor. The occasional fine artist takes this series of courses, Romero says, adding that one painting major’s final project involved creating a website that describes “where trash goes and how artists might reduce the amount of waste they create”.Oil paints are not banned, but we try to make students understand the impact of their choices Jane Marsching, MassArtAt the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt) in Boston, art materials such as paints are identified in terms of their five-stage lifecycle—extraction (of minerals and pigments from plants or the ground), production, distribution, consumption and waste—all of which impacts the natural environment and the human communities where these processes take place. Watercolour paints and gouaches have a lower impact on the environment than oils and petroleum-based acrylics, according to Jane Marsching, the college’s sustainability fellow and director of its sustainability minor. Oil paints and acrylics are not banned at MassArt, “but we try to make students understand the impact of their choices”.‘Doing things differently’Marsching adds that “the most sustainable thing is not to make more things”. Both the sustainability minor and the priority given to the subject in all of the college’s art and design departments aim to keep students aware of alternatives to some of the fine art world’s most traditional materials. In the design fields, there is a strong understanding of the need to work with newer, less impactful materials, “and many in sculpture and the craft disciplines are very interested in doing things differently”, she says. The field of painting, however, “has baggage associated with it and is much more challenging”.One tangible change MassArt has made has been to establish a space for collecting and distributing recycled or extra art materials. The student-run ReStore gathers goods that students no longer want or need, such as paints, paper, brushes and fabric samples, which are made available for free. The ReStore represents an improvement over previous campus practices, Marsching says, where “at the end of a semester, students just throw out everything, filling a dumpster”.However, planet-friendly practices and processes are not requirements at any of the colleges and universities where sustainability is encouraged. While resins (frequently used in sculpture casting) and spray paints are not permitted in some buildings of the Parsons School of Design at the New School in New York, for example, they may be used in others, according to Catherine Telford Keogh, an assistant professor of fine arts there. She adds that students are directed to the college’s healthy materials lab to learn about sustainable alternative supplies.“We’re not a green-only school,” says Hugh Pocock, a sculpture and video professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. Pocock founded its ecosystems, sustainability and justice major, and is its co-ordinator. “Not all students want to be burdened by this.” While there, students can learn about milk paint (non-toxic, biodegradable paint composed of casein milk protein, clay, lime and water, using no preservatives, solvents, additives or fillers), clay with added mycelium (a type of mushroom that can be grown into a mould, where it becomes hard, or can be carved afterwards, and is entirely compostable), kombucha leather (a flexible alternative to leather made from cellulose nano­fibrils spun by bacteria and yeast) and bioceramics (the use of eggshell waste and algae to form a mouldable clay).Several independent art colleges have earned a place in Princeton Review’s annually updated guide to green colleges, which numerically rates more than 500 colleges and universities, mostly in the US, in terms of how faculty buildings are constructed, how energy is sourced and how waste is handled. The the 2024 edition of the guide includes the Parsons School of Design, the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. Carolyn Shafer, the director of the Center for Sustainable Design Strategies at Pratt, says the reason why more independent art colleges do not qualify to be in the green guide is because “it takes months to complete the form that Princeton Review sends out, and small colleges don’t have the staff who can devote all that time to do it”.According to a spokesperson for Princeton Review, a survey of 12,000 college applicants and their parents revealed that “about 67% of respondents said having info about colleges’ commitments to the environment would affect their decision to apply to or attend the schools”. However, Shafer says she has “never met a student who said that they picked Pratt because of its high sustainability rating”.