From the Field · Stories in practice

Story by Erin Parish

“Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are wedded forever,” Moby Dick, Herman Melville

Scott Bluedorn, born in Southampton, New York, in 1986 and now living and working between Sag Harbor and Bridgehampton, belongs to a lineage of Eastern Long Island artists for whom place is not merely a backdrop but a structuring force. Educated at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, Bluedorn then returned to the East End. The artist also earned a residency at Miami’s influential Fountainhead, an artist residency program, among many others, and has exhibited at the Parrish Art Museum in Watermill, NY.

Bluedorn’s work is not only distinguished by his vast technical range, spanning painting, drawing, printmaking, installation, collage, assemblage, photography, illustration, design, and even GIFs, but also the way these forms coalesce around a single, persistent worldview he describes as a “maritime cosmology.” This vision is shaped by salt air, maritime labor, ecological precarity, the cry of seagulls as the day’s soundtrack, and the long memory of the sea.

Story by Erin Parish

“I don't know what Color Field painting means. I think it was probably invented by some critic, which is okay, but I don't think the phrase means anything. Color Field painting? I mean, what is color? Painting has to do with a lot of things. Color is among the things it has to do with. It has to do with surface. It has to do with shape; it has to do with feelings which are more difficult to get at.” Jules Olitski

The paintings of Andrew Arocho (born 1994, Bronx, NY) sit comfortably within the long arc of Abstract Expressionism, occupying the fertile middle ground between color field painting and action painting that emerged after Pollock and Rothko redefined the stakes of abstraction in the 1940s. This is a position many postwar and contemporary painters have circled, yet few manage to inhabit without the burden of history. This is the work of a young artist who has an old soul and who understands that abstraction remains an arena within to paint, not a style.

Jackson Pollock | LONG STORY SHORT

Story by Maximiliano Martin

Where Trees Breathe Forward

Passion and love for life, and for what we do, is a gift we carry throughout our entire lives. Unfortunately, not all of us get to open that gift or enjoy the benefits of sharing it with the world. Some might say that those who do are turning it over or gifting it back to the source that connects us all. Luckily for us, that has been the case for Kathleen King, who not only opened her gift and tapped into it but also embraced it fully. She accepted it as her own and quickly recognized its blessing, organically and naturally, like breathing.

As Kathleen King walked me through her experience purchasing her land, I realized we had more in common than I expected. After closing on the property, she was devastated to learn that nine of the property’s cedar trees, the ones she cherished most, would need to be cut down to make space for her new sanctuary. These trees were the very reason she chose this land. They had been there long before her, and if she had anything to say about it, they would remain long after. In early conversations with her landscape design firm, she learned there might still be a way to protect the cedars she loved. It would require care, commitment, and trust. She was willing to try.

Story by Erin Parish

“When cultures intersect, gods mutate,” Sterling Rook, 2025

Sterling Rook (b. 1984, Miami) makes artwork that is informed by both the culture and the ecology of South Florida and its persistent development. He is a graduate of Florida International University’s MFA program and a resident at the Bakehouse Art Complex. Whether through his neighborhood-mapping mural Bass Famous Tabernacle or his sculptural use of palm fronds, Rook returns to the intersection of the seemingly disparate cultures of his heritage: South American and Caucasian via the British Isles. His work is particularly significant to Miami yet plumbs history for the universal language of pattern.

Artists inhabit their own intellectual worlds, rich oceans of self-crafted information, influence, and priorities. The materials they choose, the histories they trace, and the influences that shape their vision form a tapestry of origins. For Rook, art becomes a means of contemplating the double helix of his identity: the entwined DNA of his Peruvian and British heritage. His work emerges from that genetic duality, translating inherited traditions of handicraft and pattern into contemporary reflections on place, ecology, and ancestry.

Story by Laura Marsh

Art, care, and community as coordinates of renewal

Hettler.Tüllmann Studio explores how design can build community by reimagining everyday materials. After learning about Helping Hands, an arts and crafts program organized by the Miami-Dade Public Library System’s Country Walk Branch, where volunteers crochet ground mats from recycled plastic to support people experiencing homelessness, the two artists were deeply moved by the project’s purpose. Seeing how a humble act of making could embody care and sustainability, they invited Helping Hands to collaborate on a new creative endeavor.

At the heart of Helping Hands is a practice of compassion and renewal. Everyday shopping bags from neighborhood stores are cut into strips and spun into a soft, durable yarn called plarn. Participants gather at the library to crochet this transformed material into ground mats that provide comfort and dignity to those in need. Each mat becomes proof that small, shared gestures can bridge isolation and turn what was once disposable into something of enduring use and meaning.

Story by Erin Parish

Inheritance and Impermanence

A lineage marked by flight, survival, and the quiet force of memory becomes the ground from which Karla Kantorovitch builds her practice. Here, the past is not an anchor but a pulse.

“Everything wears down. Objects, things in nature, our bodies, are impermanent. All things are in a constant state of becoming and dissolving. I find beauty in the imperfection, in the passage of time, in the rusty and old, even in decay. I understand deterioration as part of the process of life, the circle of nature, the death of the physical. I enjoy objects at the moment of fragility when they are approaching nothingness.”
Karla Kantorovich

Story by Laura Marsh

As a steward of butterflies hailing from Hialeah and Santo Domingo, Franky Cruz "moved into the paradise of curiosity"

Throughout his work, first as an artist in residence in Everglades (AIRIE) in 2015, and again in 2024 where he worked with Houston Cypress from the Love the Everglades Movement. Reflecting on his return to South Florida after completing a residency at the Home Base Project in Berlin in 2015, Cruz recalls a thirst to learn about its history and the natural environment so easily ignored, so profound that he ventured barefoot into the Everglades with friends to fully immerse himself in its untamed beauty. This is the type of self-led advocacy and reflection that we admire at green religion, since true environmental change starts with us and becomes eco-contagious.

With local grassroots at the heart of his advocacy, Cruz gave a lecture with NaMa Native Landscapes in their Flora of Miami Garden Center on the role of pollinator plants and butterflies as winged collaborators in his work. Akin workshops include the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), the Center for Subtropical Affairs, and the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Miami. His admiration for the natural world runs deep, beginning with a childhood triumph as Best Bug Collector in 5th grade at Jose Marti Middle School (now Jose Marti MAST 6-12 Academy). Cruz's artistic practice unfolds in distinct studio cycles: it starts with the cultivation of garden habitats, passes through metamorphosis, and culminates in the transformation of butterfly secretions onto paintings and for large-scale public sculptures and installations. Giving nature credit to nature for its labors promotes a shared green understanding that we can find harmony through our common needs to build resiliency together.

Story by Laura Marsh

NaMa Native Landscapes and their new venture Flora of Miami

NaMa Native Landscapes was founded in 2018 by Natalia Manrique and Mauricio Gonzalez, long-time friends of Green Religion founder John DeFaro. The couple and co-founders of NaMa strive to offer a sustainable alternative that actively combats the negative impacts of traditional landscaping practices on our environment and economy. They are committed to demonstrating the benefits of better plant selection, arrangement, proper watering methods, and more. Native landscaping supports biodiversity and pollination, helping to restore and protect South Florida’s delicate ecosystem.

Mauricio Gonzalez was born in 1978 in Havana and arrived in the United States in 2000. Predominantly a visual artist and painter, his work reflects an integrated, autobiographical practice that challenges and demystifies painting. With a deep affection for nature and all that grows, Mauricio now creates ethereal drawings and watercolors that beautifully reflect and enhance NaMa's successful landscape projects. These personal and visionary creations are gifted to friends and family. Gonzalez’s work has been exhibited at Miami's renowned Frederick Snitzer Gallery and Locust Projects and has been acquired by the Martin Margulies Collection in Miami and the Cohen Family Collection in New York, among others.

Story by Laura Marsh

Dr. Scott Brown Reveals the Green That Heals

Dr. Brown, a long-time friend of John DeFaro, shares in his green insights with mutual support. Their early conversations often turned to the green canopy overhead; exchanges marked by a shared sense of purpose. John, the maker and gardener, and Scott, the investigator, bonded over careers and aspirations, committed to educating one person and one community at a time. Surrounded by lush greenery, they share a deep commitment to climate justice and solution initiatives. For both, the global warming crisis is ever-present, woven into their daily lives under Florida’s radiant sun as they advocate for ecosystem awareness and sustainable practices.

The Greener the Better. Photo courtesy of the University of Miami

Story by John DeFaro

Shaping a Letter into Life

An ancient-inspired mark, a playful logo, a living symbol for Green Religion

The Origin G began as my search for a mark that could represent Green Religion. I was looking for something as simple and ancient as a symbol made before words, yet alive enough to carry our mission today.