As I stand at the kitchen counter chopping carrots for my “Sunday soup,” I pause and look out the window. The Spring greens are back and are becoming brighter every day. I marvel at them, although since they come around once a year to awaken us from the stark landscape of winter, they are no surprise. I go back to my chopping. While most of the carrot goes in the soup, the peels and the hard nubby ends get dropped into the glass vase I am using as my kitchen compost container. It’s pretty and makes a nice temporary home for the food scraps before I walk them outside to my backyard compost bin to allow my food waste to decompose naturally, to become useful energy, regenerating nutrient deprived dirt into healthy soil.
My fascination with composting began almost a decade ago. Soon after, while in mid-thought, a soft light streamed through the kitchen illuminating the clear container of gathered scraps. It held my gaze and, as a photographer, I was transfixed. LOVE COMPOST was born. I have been composting and photographing the organic matter ever since.
International Compost Awareness Week 2023, (ICAW), is May 7-13. I’m celebrating my current LOVE COMPOST photographic installation at Whole Harvest, 419 Broadway, Saratoga Springs, on Friday, May 12, from 12 – 3 p.m. I will be there to greet you. Artwork will be for sale with a portion donated to Sustainable Saratoga.
I continue to celebrate compost, and it is with gratitude and delight that I am a 2023 recipient of an Artist’s Grant from Saratoga Arts to create LOVE COMPOST: A Saratoga Collaborative, which will involve local businesses and be exhibited at the new Saratoga Senior Center. Installation date to be determined.
For more information about LOVE COMPOST, visit terri-lynnpellegriphotography.com.
Contact these valuable resources to learn about Composting:
Sustainable Saratoga (sustainablesaratoga.org), Pitney Meadows Community Farm (pitneymeadowscommunityfarm.org), Loving Earth Compost (lovingearthcompost.com), US Composting Council (compostingcouncil.org).
Saratoga Arts made this program possible through the Community Arts Regrant Program, funded by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
