Tag: Inspiration Through Exploration

I’ve been spending a lot more time in the water these days…it’s freezing but also exhilarating, I always feel better after a swim, as if the whole day can be reset by a good dunking. Swimming has always been a place of meditation for me, and water has always been an inspiration. Lately, I’ve been diving deeper (pun not intended!) into the science of water; reading more, learning more and thinking more about all the ways we encounter water. How we take its resource for granted, how we live in the subtle balance of having too much or too little water, how our bodies literally 60% water and really paying attention to what’s below the surface.

These images below are of radiolarian skeletons under an electron microscope, radiolarians are single cell planktons that live in all oceans, they trap carbon from the atmosphere and make up the majority of siliceous ooze at the bottom of the deep oceans. I’ve been fascinated by their complex forms for a long time and have based many works of art around these forms.

Over the coming months, I’ll be working on a number of new pieces using these as inspiration working towards an exhibition at Smith Gallery on the UCSC campus. I’m most excited that through the university, I will be partnering up with professors and students who are studying these creatures, their impact on the larger animals of the ocean, climate change and how we are all connected. I can’t wait to geek out on the science side of all this and use my art as the vehicle to share that knowledge in the upcoming exhibition. I am inspired.

Recently reorganizing files led me to going through some vintage works and also made me realize that I’ve been taking my art out into nature for nearly ten years now. A sense of place and belonging to that place has become so much a part of the work and my installations, that I don’t think about the work without thinking about these places, even through the connections are as ephemeral as a shadow.

In the beginning there were experiments, some that were more successful than others. Some work didn’t connect with the space as well as others, it took some paying attention to the spaces and the work that was naturally coming out of the studio to find those connections. To figure out which pieces were more terrestrial and which more aquatic, but it felt that somehow the circle was complete by placing these pieces back where their original inspiration began, like returning the clay to the earth.

When I’ve encountered other people during the placement of these pieces, they always assume that I found the work growing or washed up or reveled somehow and wonder what anomaly of nature they are – so I guess they do look like they belong there. Below are some early images from the start of this process. If you want to check out some more images and newer ‘in the field’ installations, click here. There will be more to come in the future, I don’t see me stopping this part of my creative process any time soon… enjoy.