Art: Craig Goodworth

Illustration of a honey bee

I make art that intentionally includes non-art people–ranchers, Quakers, hunters, soil scientists, social workers, fence builders, immigrants, beekeepers, clergy. My art is concerned with what happens outside the center, on the margins and the edges: both cultural and geographic.

The last decade and a half my practice has crossed boundaries between installation art, farm labor, land art, drawing and poetry. I engage in individual studio practice and community-based work including collaborations and residencies relating art to science and religion. I often situate my art making at physical, disciplinary, and spiritual borders and boundaries.

In recent years, I’ve explored environmental topics both social and ecological: the experience of human immigration and its ecological and justice connotations, the aesthetic qualities of bees and honey as well as the ecological concern of hive collapse, and the power and horror of wildfires.

Since returning to Arizona four years ago, I’ve shifted from making public art. My studio practice has been mostly private, and my installation work concentrated to laboring on my property.

For More…

My Art Website

Articles:

  • Craig Goodworth and Cherice Bock. and “Ecotone: Quakerism, Sustainability, Art, and the Boundaries Between.” In Quakers, Creation Care, and Sustainability, eds. Cherice Bock and Stephen Potthoff. Quakers and the Discipline Series, vol. 6 (Philadelphia, PA: Friends Association for Higher Education, 2019), 217–313.
  • Craig Goodworth and Cherice Bock. “Honey & Blood: a conversation with Fulbright eco-artist Craig Goodworth.” Whole Terrain, January 5, 2015. http://www.wholeterrain.com/201501honey-blood-a-conversation-with-fulbright-eco-artist-craig-goodworth/
  • Artist Interview (with David Mehler), Triggerfish Critical Review, Issue #25 2020 https://triggerfishcriticalreview.com/craig-goodworth-featured-artist-interview/

Presentation/Artist Talks:

  • ECOTONE: The Landscape Between Art and Theology (material first offered at the Friends Association of Higher Education 2021)
  • QUAKERS and ART: Edward Hicks and James Turrell (material first offered at Earlham School of Religion, 2020)
  • THEOPOETICS (material first offered at American Academy of Religion, co-presentation Travis Poling, 2012)
  • LIMINAL GROUND: The Phoenix Project (material first offered Peace and Justice Forum, Earlham School of Religion, 2012
  • ART and BEARING WITNESS (material first offered Neighborhood Ministries, Mystic Activist Bible Study, 2023)