The Forest Grove community school is the first charter school in Forest Grove, Ore., set to open in fall 2007. O’Day, an art professor at Pacific University, is the founder of the school and has grand plans for the school as not only a place of learning but as a form of her own artistic expression, known as eco art.

“The reason I started all of this is because I actually want to start a conversation in the community about what it means to educate our children,” said O’Day. FGCS will have an emphasis on teaching children about the environmental and sustainability issues by connecting them to the community around them.

“A lot of artists are social activists,” said O’Day, “they do work that sort of points out things that are happening in the culture. That’s what an artist’s role is.” Through the school O’Day wants to help people understand their connection to the environment, which she believes is broken.

“We are actually working very hard and very fast to destroy the systems that provide our needs for us.”

 O’Day wants the community to consider environmental problems, such as global warming, and how they will affect what children need to be learning to prepare them for the future. “I hope people become aware of the idea that they have a choice in how and what they want their kids to learn.”

O’Day has long-standing career in art as a jeweler and a potter. “I think I became an artist when I was born,” said O’Day, “people are inborn with certain characteristics, traits and personality and I think that our discipline is just a way of cataloging those people.”

While she has had a successful career in creating crafts she feels that eco art is a better fit for her and her views. “I like the functional aspect of it, [eco-art] that people are immediately gratified by it; that they’re not confused and have an immediate understanding of its value to them,” said O’Day.

The FGCS serves a very specific function for the community as a place of learning and O’Day hopes it will resonate with everyone. “I want people to experience a sense of empowerment. It's a very powerful thing to actually create a school from scratch.” She enjoys seeing the people she’s working with gain strength and a sense of community.

    While it is art in an unexpected form the public has responded well when O’Day says that the school is her art. But the question remains if the public truly understands it.

“I’m a little bit conflicted on the idea that they have to understand it as art,” said O’Day, “I do want them to understand that an artist is working on it and that perspective is necessary to create the thing.” For O’Day it is all about expressing an artistic vision and collaborating with the community. O’Day and her team are now hard at work to see to it that the school is up and running in the fall. So for now, while this school represents many things, O’Day feels that the labels aren’t exactly vital to understanding her work.

 “I really want to create art or make things or do things that people don’t have any trouble understanding the value of it to themselves,” said O’Day.

By Christian Henry