The outdoors can be a dangerous place for art. Not so much the rain and the wind. But what did Joyce Kilmer write?

"I think that I shall never see/ A poem or a work of site-specific, non-representational, found-object art as lovely as a tree."

Something like that, but with fewer hyphens. In other words, it's hard for human handiwork to compete with nature.

So full credit to the Hamilton Artists Inc. and the Royal Botanical Gardens for at least trying. Their shows -- Urban Moorings and the Earth Art Exhibit respectively -- are two of the more exciting art events of the summer, at least locally. And they're outdoors.

Full credit to the Inc. and the RBG also for exporting into field and stream some of the considerable street energy of the arts in Hamilton. If it keeps up, maybe Hamilton can supplement its Art Bus (thank you, Barbara Milne) with an Art Canoe (to ferry viewers out to Cootes Paradise and the Laking Garden pond).

And full credit yet again for trying to break down our stereotypes about art: that it should pull you in rather than draw you out; that it's psychologically interior, apart from nature; that it hangs on a wall.

I think the hope here is that people will experience an art epiphany, make a connection. They'll stumble upon the floating sculptures in Cootes Paradise or the peeled trees in the Arboretum at the RBG and think, "What's this doing here? Art is broader than I thought."

But I'm not sure. Maybe they just make the general public even more confused. That's OK. It's not the job of artists and curators to be easy and/or popular, or even populist. Unless they want to reach new audiences or win old ones back.

There aren't many conventionally "beautiful" objects in either Urban Moorings or Earth Art, save perhaps for Tor Lukasik-Foss's Viking Soliloquy Chair in the first and Ludwika Ogorzelec's creation in the second (evoking either a ghostly ice ship or a terrible accident with dental floss).

Urban Moorings, to my taste, is a tighter, cleaner, more attractive, albeit smaller, exhibit than the RBG one. It symbolically alludes to such past communities as Shacktown, a houseboat colony on Cootes Paradise. The art is well integrated with the environment if somewhat overwhelmed by it, in my opinion, and, because the pieces move, the sightlines aren't always ideal.

The individual works are all interestingly conceived and passably well executed. Even so, I heard people say they thought some pieces were fishing platforms.

The art in the RBG show struck me as more cluttered, improvisational, and often too conceptual, depending heavily on label text to get its meaning across. And while the exhibit is reverential of nature, the trees in several pieces look decidedly harassed by the art (in one instance, all the bark is peeled off).

Both shows are clearly a welcome addition to the Hamilton art mix. But, despite being outdoors, the art in them uses a visual language that I think the general public will find a bit too "inside." It sure ain't the topiary dolphins at Bayfront Park.

Which brings us to an issue that will, or should, come up a lot in this column -- the question of "inside" and "outside" in the arts, elitism and accessibility. Already it's been mentioned to me by some that these new art columns are geared too much to those inside the arts, something I'm hoping to avoid, but it's a tricky line to define -- for artists, critics and audiences alike.

We'll keep trying.

Urban Moorings -- Princess Point until Aug. 5. Earth Art -- at RBG until Oct. 13.

In last week's art column I mistakenly said that Hamilton Artist Inc. board president Thea Haines is the daughter of one of the Inc.'s founding members. Her parents were involved at the beginning of the Inc., in 1975, but were not founding members.

My apologies and I hope no inference was drawn that her position at the Inc. is in any way the result of anything other than her own merits.

jmahoney@thespec.com

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