Mission Statement

Heaven & Earth Foundation is a non-profit corporation formed to help promote, develop, realize, and document large scale, non-persistent, public art projects. The public art projects of interest to the Foundation involve the manipulation of naturally occuring, time-dependent, large scale, atmospheric and environmental phenomena. Of most interest are those phenomena which in the last century have become the cause of accidental or inadvertent mark making in the environment as the result of human activity. Due to the scale of the works envisioned, the Foundation is focused on works which are ephemeral or transitory in nature and which will leave no permanent mark nor have any substantial lasting effect upon the environment.

We are now at a point in our relationship to the environment where we are making inadvertent markings on a hitherto unimagined scale. It would not be surprising to discover that the effects of global warming are gradually changing the color of the entire planet. These inadvertent alterations are usually similar in form to their naturally occurring counterparts and therefore do not attract notice. By modulating the forces which constitute these markings and treating the mark making process as metier we can create forms which are unmistakably deliberate. By imposing a palpable consciousness and rigor to these mark makings, such works will enhance our awareness of the extent of human impact on the environment.

The corporate resolutions of Heaven & Earth Foundation state the following objectives:

  1. To create public art, especially public art of a highly visible, even spectacular nature, having significant physical extent over both the sky and earth while having the ability to simultaneously involve whole segments of an urban populace in a shared experience.
  2. To raise funds to provide grants for the creation of artworks which would otherwise prove problematical to realize, particularly works which are ephemeral, evanescent, or temporary in nature and which have no subsequent capital value.
  3. To collaborate, consult with, and educate individuals and other organizations interested in such forms of public art.
The foundation's focus on large scale, ephemeral artworks is a major determinant in its nonprofit, charitable status. Since the works do not persist and often are formed from entropic materials, they do not acquire a financial life which might permit subsequent exchange or recovery of the massive costs involved in working at such scales. While some temporary public artworks adopt the approach of self-capitalization, the attitude of the founding directors is that involving capitalist financing structures as an inherent component of these works is not desirable. Therefore, the Foundation seeks to finance these works through tax-deductable, charitable contributions. To this end the Foundation has obtained 501c(3) status, being incorporated in the state of New Mexico.

It is hoped that both the public art creation as well as the educational activities of the Foundation will act as a catalyst for the creation of other forms of ephemeral land art which do not involve indelible marking of the landscape yet serve to heighten awareness of our relation to and impact upon the environment.

Heaven & Earth Foundation was formed by Bill Dolson in June, 2005 to help promote and develop his proposed series of large scale, ephemeral, public art projects and related works by other artists. The Foundation is actively searching for additional directors as well as individuals with specific needed expertise to serve on project-specific inter-disciplinary advisory panels.

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