"Finding a way through" with Nancy Cohen and Erin Greenwood

This multidisciplinary collaboration between Nancy Cohen (sculptor), Erin Greenwood (landscape architecture student), Jean Marie Hartman (ecologist) began with a diagram of bedrock geology. The geologic layers were characterized for the way they would hold water and would allow water to move through. The resulting piece captures the processes of water flow and water storage that are invisible to almost everyone.

Synaptic Lab

Art, Science, Water: A Synaptic Laboratory

Donna Webb and JeanMarie Hartman
2011
Various geologic, ceramic, insect, and soil samples.
Benches with microscope, maps and tiles.


Many artists and scientists experiment, test, analyze, and study the materials they work with. This lab represents a ceramic artist and a plant ecologist who work together to look at the characteristics of water using clay. One bench is set up to allow visitors continue some of the studies.

At The Sculpture Center, Cleveland Ohio, until Dec. 17, 2011

Erosion

Donna made this beautiful sketch that made me think about erosion.

We began to translate this into ceramic tiles.

And then Donna tested a slip with cobalt, which gave the background the appearance of water.

This set made it into the show.

GROUND WATER: OUT OF SIGHT/SITE OUT OF MIND

Our show opened at the Sculpture Center in Cleveland.  There is a short write-up on their website:
http://sculpturecenter.org/show_details/2011_Late_Fall_GroundWater.html
It's open until December 17.  I wish some of my Rutgers students and colleagues could go, but it seems like a long drive.  So let me start to tell you about the pieces I was involved in creating.

First of all, my primary partner in this worl is Donna Webb, a Professor and Ceramic Artist at U. Akron.  Here are a couple of images from her studio on Dopler Street in Akron, near Highland Square.

We started our collaboration in earnest about six months ago.  We talked about a lot of different ideas that related to water.  Many of our experiements during the first couple of months had something to do with the interactions of clay and water.  My favorite studies involved taking dry chunks of clay and adding water.  The form of the clay was transformed over a periods of minutes to hours.

As the water is soaed into the clay, platlets become distsinct.  The patterns vary with the size of the surface, the smoothness of the surface, the amount of water, and periods of drying an re-wetting.