ECOARTSPACE / CHELENZO FARMS

June 15-18, 2026. Los Cerrillos, New Mexico. Thank you to our generous leaders Patricia Watts of ecoartspace and Lorenzo and Chelsea Dominguez of Chelenzo Farms. We learned about regenerative farming, eco art education and connective aesthetics through discussions, readings, group meals, garden tours, cheese making and goat milking. A collaborative drawing project led by myself and Texas Tech Art Education students pondered how practicing basic drawing methods such as negative space, color dripping and continuous line could deepen our connective experiences to the environment and our food sources. Special Thank you to Associate Professor of Art Education Andrés Peralta for teaming up to co-create this experience and anchor students in Eco Art, Futurism & Foodways, AgriTech, Green Humanities and Blue Humanities.

 This trip was generously funded by School of Art and Talkington College of Visual and Performing Arts.

 Carol Flueckiger, Professor of Art

MONDAY JUNE 15

9am Depart TTU SOA

3pm Tour Los Cerrillos, Madrid, Turquoise Trail

5pm Arrive Chelenzo Farms

6pm Dinner

7pm Welcome Introductions & Presentations

TUESDAY JUNE 16

 8am Breakfast

10am Farm/Garden Tour

12pm Lunch

1pm Group Sketching

6pm Dinner

7pm Individual Meetings with Patricia Watts

WEDNESDAY JUNE 17

 8am Breakfast

10am Group Sketching

12pm Lunch

2pm Animal Husbandry, Goats, Cheese

6pm Dinner

7pm Individual Meetings with Patricia Watts

THURSDAY JUNE 18

8am Breakfast & Depart for Santa Fe

12pm Georgia O’Keefe Museum

2pm Depart for Lubbock 

READINGS

Basia Irland: Repositories, Patricia Watts

Mapping Eco-Art Education, Hilary Inwood

Connective Aesthetics, Suzi Gablick

TRIP PREPARATION

 Bring Sketchbook

 Study Readings 

 Be prepared to introduce yourself on the first night. Have a few sketches to show and thoughts or questions about Eco Art, food, regenerative farming and/or the readings.

 Chelenzo Farms will provide meals for our group. Bring snacks and drinks you may need for between meals. We are remote, pack ahead.

 Bring Flashlight, raincoat, swimsuit, hiking boots. Caution. It is rattle snake season.

TTU STUDENTS

Mia Deleon, Art Education

Jenny Eskew, MAE

Leigh Harrison, MAE

Mikayla Haynie, MAE

Courtney Lamb, Art Education

Liz Perez, Art Education

ECOARTSPACE

Patricia Watts is curator and founder of ecoartspace. She will be leading three short writing sessions daily, with prompts to integrate artists’ current practice with the concepts and knowledge learned in the course from a place-based perspective. The organization ecoartspace has served as a platform for artists addressing environmental issues since 1999. In 2020, they transitioned to a membership model. Members include artists, scientists, professionals, students and advocates sharing resources and supporting each other’s work. They promote an inclusive, non-competitive collaborative environment where we can all imagine and make real a healthy, equitable, resilient future.

CHELENZO FARMS

At Chelenzo Farms we have three operating pillars: research, education, and community. Our efforts focus on promoting regenerative agriculture by applying permaculture, soil health, agroecology and agroforestry principles, as well as innovative and indigenous practices to achieve our goals. Our organic research farm serves to educate the community and offer training in the areas of permaculture farming, land conservation, Indigenous agricultural and sustainability practices, and the realm of sciences that look to understand the relationship (past, current and future) that humans have with nature and the land. We also aspire to contribute to knowledge about agricultural practices and drought-resistant crop cultivation that will contribute to improve soil health in an arid environment, amidst a 23-year megadrought in the U.S. Southwest. Our unique contribution in this area includes our pioneering efforts to introduce and cultivate agave and other succulents to northern New Mexico.

 TTU SCHOOL OF ART

 Carol Flueckiger, leads Art, Environment, Sustainability programming for Texas Tech School of Art. This program offers year round field trips to support classroom learning. This course entails reading, writing, sketching and field trips that bring sustainable minded content to the imagination of the art classroom.  Students study Eco-Art and Solar Punk movements while practicing drawing and mixed media techniques. Past partnerships include Ogallala Commons, Flower Power Energy Meets Art, Elsewhere Studios and Western Slope Conservation Center.

Playa Classroom

June 6, 2026. Nazareth, TX. Drawing Playa Wetlands Field Day! playa Classroom, Nazareth, TX. Twenty people gathered to draw and experience a playa wetland. Thanks to our fearless workshop leaders: Jose Barrientos, Nature Journalist, Darryl Birkenfeld, Playa Wetlands expert and myself, Carol Flueckiger,

Art & Science in a Changing Climate

May 30, 2026. Lubbock, Texas. Carol Flueckiger joins a panel discussion at Nashwell cafe about art, science and climate change with artist Diana Cheren Nygren, artist and Sara Spurgeon, professor American Literature / Literature, Social Justice and Environment. Event organized by TTU Climate Center.

CASP Blue Party

May 16, 2026. Lubbock, Texas. Workshop for Blue Party fundraiser at LHUCA Gallery 5&J. Participants were invited to apply gold leaf on the negative space of a 4.5x6 foot cyanotype of a tumbleweed.

Conference: Land + Water

April 18, 2026. Castell, Texas. Carol Flueckiger and students Jenny Eskew and Leigh Harrison attended the Land + Water conference sponsored by Llano River Watershed Alliance and La Cuna Art Center. They also presented a workshop: Drawing Prairie Plants for the conference attendees.

Lubbock Arts Festival

April 18-19, 2026. Lubbock, Texas. Bringing sustainability to the imagination of the art classroom. This project is collaboration between Carol Flueckiger, Texas Tech School of Art, Janie McNutt, Solar Tech Energy Solutions and Warren Stoll, Flower Power Energy Meets Art.

Presenting student artwork celebrating energy through floral motifs in honor of the festival theme BLOOM! A celebration of flowers and their timeless connection to creativity, imagination. To embellish our art artistic creations, we will have on display a Star Flower Solar Cooker from Solar Tech Energy Solutions and tulip shaped wind turbine blades from a Flower Power wind turbine.

 Art 2310 Art, Environment Sustainability

Sophia Blackburn, Natural Resources Management

Emily, Contreras, Honors/Natural Resources Management

Ella Davis, Honors/Computer Science

Emma Edwards, Honors/Mechanical Engineering 

Aminah Elam, Biochemistry

Jayden Faith, Honors/Economics

Evangeline Flores, Psychology

Alyssa Krebsbach, Advertising

Marisol Mccoy, Art 

Micah Regier, Architecture 

Riley Schlosser-Bradford, Human Sciences

Calvin Tong, Honors/Cell and Molecular Biology

Kaiden Wynne, Honors/Finance

UMC Medical Center

April 15, 2026. Lubbock, Texas. Grand opening of new Cancer Center. Carol Flueckiger worked with UMC designers tp create a portfolio of Contemporary Native Plants, for the new UMC Cancer Center. The new UMC TLC2 Foundations Cancer Center marks a major advancement in healthcare access for West Texas families. Developed through the partnership between University Medical Center and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, the state-of -the art facility expands access to advanced cancer treatment, specialized physicians, and cutting edge care for patients across our region.

Drawing Playa Wetlands / Wallace Theatre

February 28, 2026. Levelland, Texas. Drawing Playa Wetlands workshop with Wallance Theatre community in Levelland.

Ogallala Commons Conference on Community Water

February 25, 2026, Hereford, Texas. Carol Flueckiger and Student Marcelo Burdis attend water conference in Hereford, TX.

Solar Powered Painting / Wallace Theatre

February 26, 2026. Levelland, Texas. Solar Powered Painting Workshop at Wallace Theatre in Levelland. Great group of participants. Great day to make bicycle cyanotype shirts!

Playa Classroom

Feb. 3, 2026. Nazareth, Texas. The days are getting longer, now that we are over 6 weeks past the Winter Solstice.  Last week, Prof. Carol Flueckiger and three of her students visited OC's Playa Classroom to observe current conditions.  They marveled at one of the large “macropore” holes lying across the playa basin, evidence of aquifer recharge during the wet period of abundant surface water this past summer.  

 Darryl L. Birkenfeld, Ph.D.

Director Emeritus

Ogallala Commons

Western Slope Conservation Center

June 17-19, 2025, Paonia, CO. Learning about beavers, control burn practices and water with Western Slope Conservation Center. Delivering art workshops on Landscape Painting, Drawing Playa Wetlands and Solar Powered Painting. Professor Carol Flueckiger, Marc Jeanin, MFA Ceramics, Veronica Valdez, MAE Art Education.

Drawing Playa Wetlands

June 7, 2025. Nazareth, Texas. Drawing Playa Wetlands workshop for Ogallala Commons Playa Classroom in Nazareth, Texas. Professor Carol Flueckiger, Marc Jeanin, MFA Ceramics and Veronica Valdez, MAE facilitate twenty participants (farmers, artists, ranchers, activists) to learn about the ecology of playa wetlands trhough drawing.