Eliza Evans, the founder and instigator of Landman for the Planet, was once a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. For decades she worked in the fields of economic development, knowledge transfer, and emerging technology and entrepreneurship. Her life transformed eleven years ago when she signed up for drawing classes at the local community college. Quickly, drawing morphed into an intense exploration of classical realism and in 2015 Eliza stunned herself by returning to school for yet another advanced degree.  

Eliza received MFA in visual art in 2017 and is now based in New York. She settled into an art practice creating installations related to climate and ecology set in the landscape. Her art changed when a curious letter showed up in the mail. Landmen, representing frackers, wanted to negotiate access to 3 acres of mineral rights in Oklahoma that she did not know she had inherited.

From the researcher to artist:

I did a deep dive on my legal options and found none, so I created All the Way to Hell as a response. Through All the Way to Hell I gave away the 3 acres of mineral rights. I had hoped to attract 250-500 people to volunteer to own the property, adding to the cost and time it takes to develop a fracked fossil fuel well. The project was included in a highly regarded show at the Thomas Erben Gallery in NYC, which was widely covered in the art press (New York Times, Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, etc). Through that press and my idiosyncratic outreach efforts (e.g., advertising the project with real estate listing services and alt-art scene newsletters), the project got traction in the climate and activist press (Dissent, Heated). Thousands, not hundreds, volunteered. By being willing to have their name on a deed, the volunteers effectively participate in a sit-in that will persist for as long as property records are maintained. I’ve started more campaigns and continue to attract more mineral parcels to fractionalize.

In 2022 my mother passed away from COVID. I knew she owned mineral rights but she did not  share much about them. Even she was unclear about how she came to own these properties. We aren’t farm or ranch people (at least not in recent generations). My great grandfather owned a hardware store in Oklahoma during the Depression. We surmised that some people settled their bills by signing over their mineral rights properties to him. My grandfather might have purchased other properties on his own. All these properties were worthless until the fracking boom. The royalty revenue from some properties eased my mother’s later years, but she had misgivings. She knew where the climate was headed, so she wrote a few checks to environmental organizations.

Soon those mineral rights will become my responsibility. There are few options for a mineral rights owner who owns a few acres here and there. To school myself on the intricacies of mineral rights I become a member of the National Association of Royalty Owners and the American Association of Professional Landmen. Landman for the Planet is about creating options for mineral rights owners regardless of the size of their holdings.

Mineral rights are not easy assets to manage and even giving them away can be a fraught process. Landman for the Planet is assembling a trusted community of lawyers (so many lawyers), accountants, mineral owners, activists, and front-line community members to guide this project as it strives, however quixotically, to become a force for a desirable future.

To learn more about Eliza Evans please visit her website, and All the Way to Hell.