Heath Massey is Professor of the Landscape Architecture Program at UC Davis. She served as Chair of the Department of Environmental Design from 2002-2007. Prior to joining the UC faculty in 1990, she practiced landscape architecture in Sacramento and Davis, California and in Boston, Massachusetts, where she also taught at the Boston Architectural Center. She holds a B.A. in Political Science from UC Berkeley (1968) a B.L.A. from Rhode Island School of Design (1980) and an M.A. in Art History from UC Davis (1988). She is a licensed landscape architect in California (Lic. No. 3383).

Professor Massey's research bridges the disciplines of landscape architecture and art history, exploring the processes by which concepts of landscape are culturally and socially constructed. She is particularly interested in how landscape representations (e.g. landscape paintings, photographs, gardens and parks) have historically worked as agents of cultural power.

Professor Massey has written extensively about the history of public parks in the nineteenth century. Her latest book, Melodramatic Landscapes: Urban Parks in the Nineteenth Century (University of Virginia Press, 2009) is a comparative social history of nineteenth-century public parks in Paris, New York and Mexico City. Her current research focuses on Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. As part of the community outreach for that project, she writes a blog about Golden Gate Park: http://fromthethicket.wordpress.com

Professor Massey also has investigated the history of landscape representation in California's Central Valley, in both the fine art and commercial art traditions. She received a grant from the California Council for the Humanities for an exhibit entitled: Picturing California's Other Landscape: The Great Central Valley, held at the Haggin Museum, Stockton in the Fall of 1999. The exhibit included visual images (paintings, photographs, maps and promotional images) representing the Central Valley over the span of the previous 150 years. Public programs developed in conjunction with the exhibit included lectures, symposia and a photography workshop. The exhibit catalogue, edited by Massey, was awarded the Rounce and Coffin Award for Western Books in 2000.

Throughout her 30-year career as a landscape architect, Professor Massey has explored contemporary concepts of landscape in a series of environmental and gallery installations and conceptual works on paper, as well as in built works of landscape architecture. Her conceptual piece "Parking Performance," performed in 1987, has been repeatedly reviewed and referenced over the ensuing years. Other conceptual works have been included in various exhibits and publications, ranging from "Carscape," a traveling exhibit organized by the Municipal Art Society in New York (1985), to "Miniature Golf on a Suburban Theme," a winning entry in the Unbuilt Landscapes Competition, published in Land Forum 6 (2000).

PUBLICATIONS: BOOKS

 

Melodramatic Landscapes: Urban Parks in the Nineteenth Century. Heath Massey, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009.

 

Picturing California's Other Landscape: The Great Central Valley. Heath Massey (Editor) Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1999.

 

 

PUBLICATIONS: PAPERS

 

"Crissy Field, San Francisco: Is Female to Male as Park is to City?" Critiques of Built Works in Landscape Architecture, Vol. 9, 2005

 

"Central Park and the Melodramatic Imagination," Journal of Urban History, Vol. 29, Issue 4, May, 2003.

 

"Why Urban Parks: A Matter of Equity?" in Once Again, Why Public Parks?, The George Wright Forum, Vol. 19.2. 2002.

 

"Women, Gardens and the English Middle Class, 1790-1850," in Bourgeois and Aristocratic Cultural Encounters in Garden Art, Washington, D.C., Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University. 2002.

 

"Pleasure Gardens, Theme Parks and the Picturesque," in The Landscapes of Theme Parks: Antecedents and Variations, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C. 2002.

 

"The Garden as Women's Place: Celia Thaxter and Mariana van Rensselaer," with Suzanne Ouellette. Gendered Landscapes, The Pennsylvania State University, Center for Studies in Landscape History. 2000.

 

"Picturing Yolo County, California: Landscape Representation and Regional Identity," co-authored with Diane Cary, Proceedings, Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture, Washington State University, 1996.

 

"Women's and Children's Quarters in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco," Gender, Place and Culture Vol. 3, No. 3. Fall, 1996.

 

"Intersections of Hyperreality and Remorse: Contemporary Landscape Design in California ," Landscape Architecture, Chinese Landscape Architects Society in Taiwan, (Fall 1996)

 

"Parks and Politics during the Second Empire in Paris," Landscape Journal. XIV-2, (Fall), 1995.

 

"A Common Language of Landscape Representation: New Zealand and California Painting in the Nineteenth Century," Landscape Review 1995: 2.

 

"Feminist Interventions in the Histories of Landscape Architecture," Landscape Journal. XIII-2, (Fall), 1994.

 

"Picturing the Central Valley, " Landscape Vol. 32, No. 2, (Spring), 1994.

 

"The National Endowment for the Arts: Diffusing Public Art in the Landscape," Proceedings, Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture, Washington, D.C., Landscape Architecture Foundation, 1992.

 

"Desert Sculpture: Nevada Earthworks Update," Nevada Public Affairs Review: Nevada's Evolving Landscape No. 1: 19-24, 1988

 

"The Machine in the Garden," p. 60-61, in Miller, Catherine G. Carscape: A Parking Handbook. Columbus, Indiana: Washington Street Press, 1988

 

"Parking Performance," Landscape Architecture 77 No. 5: 96-97, 1987

 

"American Sublime: Yosemite as Garden," Meanings of the Garden Conference, Proceedings. Francis, Mark and Hester, Randolph T. Center for Design Research, Dept. of Environmental Design, U.C. Davis, May 14-17, 1987

 

"Three Works in a Critical Frame," Landscape Architecture 75 No. 1: 92-95, 1985

 

 

PUBLICATIONS: CONFERENCE AND BOOK REVIEWS

 

"Languages of Landscape Architecture: A Review," Landscape Journal Vol. XIV-2, (Fall), 1995.

 

Book Review: Humanature. by Peter Goin. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996). Book review for ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. Vol. 5.2, Summer, 1998. p. 146-147.

 

Book Review: The Gardens of Ellen Biddle Shipman, by Judith B. Tankard, (Sagaponack, New York: Sagapress, Inc, 1996). Book review for Landscape Journal Vol. 16, No. 2, Fall 1997, p. 201-202.

 

Book Review: Garrett Eckbo: Modern Landscapes for Living by Marc Treib and Dorothee Imbert, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). Book review for Land Forum: The Critical Review of Landscape Art and Garden Design, (Washington D.C.: Spacemaker Press, Fall/Winter, 1997).

 

 

EXHIBITIONS

 

"GreenStop: Visionary designs for a self-sustainable rest stop," The Design Museum, University of California, Davis, January 3 - March 9, 2008. (Co-curator)

 

"Out of Site," The Pence Gallery, Davis, California, January 10 - February 3, 2001. Heath Massey, Phoebe Massey and Andra Mulhaupt (Curator and exhibitor)

 

"Picturing California's Other Landscape: The Great Central Valley," The Haggin Museum, Stockton, California, October 17 - December 31, 1999. (Curator)

 

"Picturing Yolo County," Yolo County Historical Museum, Woodland, California, May 18 - September 15, 1996. (Co - Curator)

 

"Six Visions of the Other Landscape," Alumni Show '92, Rhode Island School of Design, Division of Architecture and Design, October 12 - 23, 1992. BEB Gallery, 231 South Main Street, Providence, Rhode Island. (Design work included in a juried exhibition.)

 

"Carscape," Selected entries from the Columbus Carscape Competition, Traveling Exhibit, 1985 - 1986. (Design work included in a juried exhibition. Also curated the exhibit when it was shown at the University of California, Davis.)

 

"Carscape," Selected entries from the Columbus Carscape Competition. Municipal Art Society of New York, Urban Center Gallery II. June 26 - July 18, l985. (Design work included in a juried exhibition.)

 

"Visions for Columbia Point," John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts. Sept.13 - Sept.20, 1981. (Design work invited for exhibition.)

 

"Landscape at RISD," Exhibition of student and alumni work. Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island. Spring, l980. (Design work included in a juried exhibition.)

 

 

AWARDS/HONORS

 

Rounce and Coffin Award for Western Books, awarded to Picturing California's Other Landscape: the Great Central Valley, 2000

 

Urban Design Award, American Institute of Architects (AIA, Northern California ), Awarded for the Southern Pacific Railyard Project, Sacramento, California. 1992. (Haag Landscape Architecture, consultant to Roma Design Group)

 

Award of Recognition, Individual Garden Category. Design Arts Competition of the University Arboretum at the University of California, Davis, California. 1988.

 

Merit Award, Design Arts. California Council of Landscape Architects (CCLA). Awarded for "Parking Performance," Davis, California. 1987.

 

Merit Award, American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). Awarded for "Visions for Columbia Point," Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. 1980.

 

 

GRANTS/RESEARCH SUPPORT

 

Sustainable Transportation Center, University of California, Davis, $4,000. Funding for exhibit, "GreenStop: Visionary designs for a self-sustainable rest stop," 2007 - 2008.

 

UC Mexus. $6,000. Faculty Exchange, For faculty exchange between UCD and UNAM. 2003 - 2004

 

Great Valley Center. $3,000. Project Grant for the catalogue, Picturing California's Other Landscape: The Great Central Valley, published by Heyday Press and the Haggin Museum, 1999 - 00.

 

The Parker and Florence Holt Trust. $25,000. Funding for the exhibit, "Picturing California's Other Landscape: The Great Central Valley." The Haggin Museum, Stockton, 1999 - 00.

 

California Council for the Humanities. $10,000. Project Grant for the exhibit, "Picturing California's Other Landscape: The Great Central Valley," and associated public programs at the Haggin Museum, Stockton, 1998 - 99.

 

Great Valley Center. $2,000. Planning Grant for the exhibit, "Picturing California's Other Landscape: The Great Central Valley," The Haggin Museum, Stockton, 1998 - 99.

 

California Council for the Humanities. $750. Planning Grant for the exhibit, "Picturing California's Other Landscape: The Great Central Valley," The Haggin Museum, Stockton, 1998 - 99.

 

U.C. Davis Washington Center Research Grant, 1994 - 1995.

 

Faculty Development Award, Winter Quarter, 1992. Project: "Picturing California's Central Valley: Art, Vision and Reality."

 

Collaborative Research Grant, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of California, Davis, 1992: "Landscape at Risk: The Rural/Urban Edge."

 

Faculty Research Grant, University of California, Davis, 1992 - 1993

 

Faculty Research Grant, University of California, Davis, 1991 - 1992

 

Graduate Research Award, University of California, Davis. (Graduate thesis, Art History), 1988

 

 

COMMITTEES/PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES

 

American Society of Landscape Architects, Sierra/Central Valley Chapter (Member).

 

Sigma, Lambda, Alpha, Landscape Architecture Honor Society, 1992 - present (Member, UC Davis Faculty Chapter Representative, 1992-2002)

 

Regional Director (Region 2), Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA), 1994 - 96

 

Civic Arts Commission, Davis, California, 1992 - 1993

 

Program Chairman, California Council of Landscape Architects, Annual General Membership Meeting, San Diego, 1987

3/19/2013