ABSTRACT

Jackie Brookner, landscape and ecological conceptual artist, and Maxine Levin, soil scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service, were introduced to each other by Alexandra R. Toland in early 2014 to talk about soils and art in anticipation of the International Year of Soils in 2015. Their introduction was one of many threads in a growing network of interdisciplinary soil stewards. The original concept of the meeting was to have a conversation; tape, transcribe, and edit it; and focus on wherever the conversation went about soils from the viewpoints of science and art combined. They had three conversations, two by phone and one in Brookner's studio. To initiate the conversation there were several e-mail exchanges facilitated by outgoing questions from Toland that the two women responded to individually and continued to make reference to in their larger dialogue. To set the tone of the conversation, the first three questions and answers are included here. The title of the chapter, “Dirt Dialogue,” refers to the working title for the entire book, which was later abandoned after much protest against the “D” word, but remained in all of Levin's and Brookner's working documents and e-mail exchanges.