Permaculture and ISLAND

Its hard to talk about Permaculture as only a part of what we do, much as its hard to talk about Pattern Languages as only a part of what we do. As the above permaculture "flower" illustrates, art is part of permaculture, in the sense that it's a part of culture. Design, including pattern languages, are obviously a part of built environment, but are more broadly a part of the entire system.

And yet permaculture no more contains art than art contains permaculture. The same is true of pattern languages. I tried making a similar image to illustrate the connections between art, natural design and sustainable living at ISLAND. I won't publish it here, because it's not right. The image I expiremented with is the one almost all of us will recognize from either kindergarten art classes or bad powerpoint presentations (and it's at the top of this blog). How do you describe the intersection of sustainable living and art, without reducing it to something far smaller than either of them?

The point of ISLAND, the mission, is to find the magic of these intersections - the ways that design informs art informs sustainable living informs art informs design.

If the terms used here are not totally familiar to you, here's some background, thanks to Wikipedia.
Permaculture
Pattern Languages