Knowing Your Water, 2015 Sculpture at Duke Hall Critique Space, James Madison University: Mad River canoe, photo negatives, thread, wood, fluorescent lighting, test tubes, acrylic paint, fire and smoke from matches, clear sticker paper, water collected from the Purgatoire River, Niagara River, Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, Platte River, Susquehanna River, Genessee River, Sligo Creek, Rock Creek, Anacostia River, Potomac River, Shenandoah River, Patuxent River, St Mary’s River, Choptank River, Monocacy River, Chesapeake Bay, Atlantic Ocean
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At The Water Table, 2016 Interactive Installation at New Image Gallery, James Madison University: test tubes, water from Blacks Run, cement, wood, paint, photo negatives, waxed thread, cotton thread, vellum, meditation cushions, benches, and chair
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MOVED BY WATER
2016
A two-part exhibition at James Madison University, Moved By Water encourages contemplation and conversation on the significance of water in the ecology of our lives. Through reflection and mindfulness practice, it seeks to make a connection between developing an internal empathic relationship to water with the need to take external actions to change how we live on the planet.
Part 1: At The Water Table, 2016
At The Water Table is an interactive installation allowing viewers to witness and participate in a sitting meditation with the intention of reflecting on water. At each seat, visitors will find paper to write on and place into the bowls the name of a water source providing them with nourishment, solace, joy, renewal or memories — or the name of a place experiencing a water crisis. This is a way to enter the meditation with a personal connection or intention. The test tubes filled with water from Blacks Run, which flows alongside the gallery, serve as a reminder to reflect back on water when the mind wanders. Please sit for as long as comfortable. The act of being still and focusing attention on this one element hopes to provoke deep listening and dialogue on greater awareness and care for the water that sustains all of us.
Part 2: Knowing Your Water, 2015
Knowing Your Water is constructed from a salvaged 16-foot Mad River Canoe transformed into a lit vessel with an illuminated cover of hand-stitched photographic negatives. Surrounding the canoe are rows of test tubes, holding water collected from river, lake and ocean waters that have been the source of nourishment for the artist throughout her life. The intimacy of the memories embedded in the photos represent a capturing of the relationships that sustain as well. Both are a way of holding time for examination, a chance to consider and change course before being carried toward our destination.
An essay in Alice Walker’s We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For influenced this work, mainly a poem she quotes by the Hopi Elders of Oraibi, Arizona. The poem and essay alert us to awaken to the eleventh hour and the need to understand the practices that will support each of us during difficult times. As an environmental call to action, it asks us to gather ourselves—know our gardens, our waterways and our communities. On reflection, the following path of inquiry flowed from this reimagined canoe and gathered water: How well do we know our most essential and fundamental companion, water? What if we treated water in a way that is as sacred to us as our family and friends? If we were to do this, how would we respond to our waters as they are abused and destroyed?
2016
A two-part exhibition at James Madison University, Moved By Water encourages contemplation and conversation on the significance of water in the ecology of our lives. Through reflection and mindfulness practice, it seeks to make a connection between developing an internal empathic relationship to water with the need to take external actions to change how we live on the planet.
Part 1: At The Water Table, 2016
At The Water Table is an interactive installation allowing viewers to witness and participate in a sitting meditation with the intention of reflecting on water. At each seat, visitors will find paper to write on and place into the bowls the name of a water source providing them with nourishment, solace, joy, renewal or memories — or the name of a place experiencing a water crisis. This is a way to enter the meditation with a personal connection or intention. The test tubes filled with water from Blacks Run, which flows alongside the gallery, serve as a reminder to reflect back on water when the mind wanders. Please sit for as long as comfortable. The act of being still and focusing attention on this one element hopes to provoke deep listening and dialogue on greater awareness and care for the water that sustains all of us.
Part 2: Knowing Your Water, 2015
Knowing Your Water is constructed from a salvaged 16-foot Mad River Canoe transformed into a lit vessel with an illuminated cover of hand-stitched photographic negatives. Surrounding the canoe are rows of test tubes, holding water collected from river, lake and ocean waters that have been the source of nourishment for the artist throughout her life. The intimacy of the memories embedded in the photos represent a capturing of the relationships that sustain as well. Both are a way of holding time for examination, a chance to consider and change course before being carried toward our destination.
An essay in Alice Walker’s We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For influenced this work, mainly a poem she quotes by the Hopi Elders of Oraibi, Arizona. The poem and essay alert us to awaken to the eleventh hour and the need to understand the practices that will support each of us during difficult times. As an environmental call to action, it asks us to gather ourselves—know our gardens, our waterways and our communities. On reflection, the following path of inquiry flowed from this reimagined canoe and gathered water: How well do we know our most essential and fundamental companion, water? What if we treated water in a way that is as sacred to us as our family and friends? If we were to do this, how would we respond to our waters as they are abused and destroyed?
