A Deeper Sense: Looking at Place with Science and Art

 This photo is from one of several field trips that have already taken place this semester with Craig Milewski's Stream Ecology class, a course for senior Paul Smith's College students working on final projects before graduation - called Capstone Projects at this college. As a scientist and a poet, Craig encourages his students to do high quality field research and to also think about this final project as an opportunity to interpret their work artistically, through visual, written, or musical arts. And he again has invited several area artists to join in to produce artworks that interpret the project in some way. The students' final presentations and art will be presented to the college community and the public, along the artwork of the lucky professional artists invited to join in.

(The first of these art-and-science projects in which I participated took place in Spring 2012. See my blog posts from March through April 2012 for my process that time. And here are images of three of the five final works, which I now realize I did not post!)

 

This new project - "A Deeper Sense" - focuses on a forested watershed not far from the Paul Smith's College campus where research has taken place for about 12 years. Questions about the role of stream channel disturbance after 2 consecutive hurricanes with heavy rains are being investigated, among other issues.

As I prepare my art work focused on this project you can follow my process on this blog. I'll post on my main page, and you can also find the whole project on my page "Deeper Sense Project" listed in my blog header. I welcome your insights and comments!

Regrowth, Energy, Mystery

Photo of the clear cut plot with the March snow. 

Printed on the textured and painted background. 

This image reflects the regrowth, energy, and mystery I feel at this place, completely cleared of trees about 15 years ago.

Last season's bird nest in a red maple above the "Plot #2 - Clearcut" sign. 

The architecture of this young forest holds and defines the life here.

Today I am working with questions.

• what format shall I use for the final artwork?
• what do the colors I use say about the meaning of the work?
• how will I incorporate data, maps, other images?
• can I use some of Craig's poetry with the images?

 

Finding the Essence

Paul Smith's College Student Center on Lower St. Regis Lake

Teaching art classes at Paul Smith's College since last September has been an adventure. The students are lively, creative, and friendly. And many of them are most at home in the northern forest or on pristine lakes. After all, it is a forestry and natural resources school, among other things. For fun, some of these young people snow shoe, climb trees, and throw axes. Others are in the culinary  and hospitality programs - some of them like to play with food (and sometimes bring me exquisite bites of their creations). In these and the other programs, they are very hands-on people, which makes them great art students. They amaze and inspire me. The faculty does no less.

Recently I was invited, along with several other artists, to interpret the science involved in setting up and monitoring a Long Term Ecological Research Project by students in a senior-level course. That Art & Science connection is dear to my heart - having loved and worked in the ecological field as scientist for years - and I am honored to be part of the project. I was out at the research site last weekend, and now I am processing images and information to determine how I want to make a visual artwork for the exhibition of the science and the art at the Paul Smith's College VIC, which will open on April 24th.

The research and monitoring will take place - hopefully over at least the next 200 years (!!!) - in the plots set up about 15 years ago along the Jenkins Mountain Trail to study the effects of 5 timbering techniques in the forest at the Paul Smith's College Visitor Interpretive Center, formerly owned by NY State and now owned and managed by the college. The photo above summarizes the challenge of telling this story with visual arts - ecological interactions, human use, history, and regeneration. 


I'll show my process here of experiencing the site; learning what is know about it already; talking with the students, faculty, and other scientists about the project; and then making some art that tells this story from my own point of view. I hope you'll tell me what you think, offer your ideas, and enjoy the process. Thanks!