Environmental art (aka land art, green art, earthworks) aims to interpret nature and to inspire audiences to re-envision people's relationship with nature. Some artists see their work as a springboard for reclaiming and remediating damaged environments. Art began keenly grounded in nature--think of cave paintings of animals, in charcoal and hematite, commemorating the intimate relationship between people and aspects of their environment. Since then, art has come to celebrate a domestication of nature. Although country landscapes and horses at rest abound as aesthetic subjects, today's green art grows from the premise that past traditions have inadequately confronted nature, relegating the environment to a bit role, a two-dimensional background. Much of what art museums display is, of course, paints ground from minerals, marble shaped into sculpture, wood carved into frames. Yet those natural materials don't really convey nature; an artwork is stylized, laboriously changed into a product that seems far from its earthly origins. Its beauty lies in its transformation from, say, a jagged rock into a smooth, "unnatural" form. Environmental artists today are trying to bring art back to a more direct and intelligent engagement with the natural world. In this article, the author describes what he saw at the fascinating conference, "Art + Environment," at the Nevada Museum of Art, in Reno.