Re-futuring the Brownfields of Teaneck Creek: Artists Bite Back!

Mary Arnold

Where Are We? Comparison of NJ Meadowlands to Central Park, NY.



Concept Mapping 2000+ Signwork with text showing trails, features, interpretive and place specific art.



Marsh Marigolds – May 2, 2004



Trout Lillies – May 2, 2004


Contact Information: teaneckcreek@mindspring.com, Phone: 201.836.2403, Fax: 201.836.1734, Mary Arnold, MBA, Executive Director. Richard Kirk Mills, Artist in Residence, Teaneck Creek Conservancy, Inc., 20 East Oakdene Avenue, Teaneck, NJ 07666, USA.


All photographs © Richard Kirk Mills


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Historically, this iconic site was a salt marsh within the New Jersey Meadowlands. During the construction of the interstate highways, salt marsh habitat in the Teaneck Creek Watershed that for millennia teemed with Shad, Great blue heron, and Beaver provided a handy dump site. Citizens and government turned their backs on this place and Nature reclaimed it.

The Teaneck Creek Conservancy project aims to raise public consciousness about the meaning of this marshland’s degradation and its revitalization in the 21st century. Artists are playing a major role in this effort. Their work here—far out of traditional studio space and practice—responds to the questions this place evokes: From where have we come? Where are we? Where are we going?

The Puffin Gallery’s exhibition, “Re-futuring the Brownfields of Teaneck Creek: Artists Bite Back!” presents ten artists’ visions for the Teaneck Creek Conservancy. Artists Brandon Ballengee, Betty Beaumont, Michele Brody, Ariane Burgess, Kate Dodd, Valentina DuBasky, Lynne Hull, Kerry Mills, Richard Kirk Mills, and Winn Rea created art work for the exhibit that is site-specific and thematically based on the history and meaning of the ecological degradation and community-based restoration of this public Open Space. Many of the works are “performative,” that is, they include elements of public participation in the creation and interpretation of the art works. In the future, some of these art works may be constructed in the park. Artists will work as part of an interdisciplinary team of wetlands scientists, landscape architects, and engineers to create public art appropriate for this sensitive area.

As evidenced by the “Re-futuring” exhibit, artists can tackle real world problems with power, grace, ingenuity, and imagination. They can provide vision, creativity, energy, and crucial visual materials that inspire imagination and action. Artists’ talents can raise the entire level of a project’s planning, design, and implementation process, and its work products. The participation of artists can fuel the generation of public support and project funding. Public art not only involves listening and being sensitive to the community and the environment, but having the tenacity to slog through meetings, paperwork, regulatory hurdles, and disappointments. Congratulations to all artists and other citizens who heed Lucy Lippard’s call to respond to the Lure of the Local.

The Teaneck Creek Conservancy’s artist in residence, Richard Kirk Mills, is a role model in this regard. Mills is a former landscape painter, 16-year Teaneck resident, and municipal official who took his art out of the studio to lead local communities in envisioning and organizing the transformation of degraded civic space. When working outdoors, Mills operates between art and interpretation, text and image, always trying to find ways of evoking and re-connecting the public to a sense of place—and future possibilities.

As it happens, the 46-acre Teaneck Creek Conservancy is a place full of rich history, not only of the Lenape and the early Colonists, but of the intense development of the 20th century. The latest chapter is perhaps the greatest story, simply because it is currently unfolding and requires our participation. What is the value of this landscape? How do we re-define public space? What should a park be?
In 2001, Teaneck residents, school children, a family foundation, and local governments started the Teaneck Creek Conservancy project. The Puffin Foundation, Nancy H. Gray Foundation, County of Bergen, Green Acres, NY-NJ Harbor Estuary Program, and US EPA have provided funding and support.

Artist’s Biography: Teaneck resident Richard Kirk Mills, C.W. Post Professor of Fine Art at Long Island University, is Teaneck Creek Conservancy’s artist-in-residence. Rick’s leadership and place-based, community-based public and environmental art—funded by the Rosenstein family’s Puffin Foundation—have guided the Conservancy’s planning for 3.5 years. Rick describes his Conservancy responsibilities as “conceptual framing, interpretive graphical placemaking, research and archiving of historic local maps, photos, images, and text, and liaison for community, place narratives, and artists.” Rick co-curated “Re-futuring the Brownfields of Teaneck Creek: Artists Bite Back” with Puffin Cultural Forum Director Tim Blunk. The exhibit features 10 artists’ visions of restoration and illumination of place specific resources, artifacts, and stories of the Teaneck Creek Conservancy.

Writer’s Biography: Over the past 15 years, Mary Arnold, MBA, poet and “Eco-Businesswoman” has applied writing and business expertise to community activism, nonprofit startups, and the development, funding, and implementation of environmental restoration projects. Her projects include the start up and first six years of development of Hackensack Riverkeeper, Inc. During 18 months as Executive Director of the Teaneck Creek Conservancy, Mary has attracted and managed an interdisciplinary team that includes artists, wetlands scientists, engineers, landscape architects, government agencies, patrons, and volunteers. Natural resources enhancements, construction of the first phase of a 1.5-mile passive trail system, and the creation of site-specific performative public art works are happening today in the park. After her Teaneck Creek experience, Mary has vowed never to work without an artist again.