ART 4 DISCOVERY

A DO-IT-YOURSELF ADVENTURE IN

NEW ART

by Keith Fox, UW-Madison Art Student

Do you ever feel a need for a change? I do. In fact, I sometimes feel as though I have outgrown my little perceptions of how "life is supposed to be." For this reason, I need bigger perceptions. Luckily, at this time, I have come across a puzzling work of art--Betsy Damon's A Memory of Clean Water--which will give me a perfect opportunity to find those bigger perceptions I'm looking for. Now, to start this adventure, I will look carefully at A Memory of Clean Water.

It's really special to me because it's oversized and has lots of pieces. Yet even though I'm excited and somewhat nervous abot starting out on this imaginative adventure, I need to turn my emotions off momentarily. This will allow me to see this artwork with my head and not my heart as I start to gather the most obvious facts about it. By doing so I see that it's made up of different materials: rocks, pebbles, lots and lots of goofy-looking brown paper with plants suspended in it and grooves that look like rocks, and a TV set (which you can't see in the photograph) showing a video about water pollution.

I get the feeling that instead of fighting nature with a "man against nature" sort of attitude, these artists are engaged in both a conversation and dance with it.

Next, I need to gather the less immediately obvious information about the artwork. I start to do this by reading one of the handouts in the gallery which tells me that there are 250 feet of this lumpy paper. In addition, the reason that it's lumpy is because it's really a casting of a dry, stoney creek bed in Utah. In other words, instead of making a plaster cast of an animal's paw print in mud in order to have a record of it and to study it, the artist made a paper cast of a creek bed. I've never heard of anyone doing that before. Furthermore, she didn't work alone the way a lot of artists do. She did this with a whole team of 12 artists.

Apparently, they made the paper pulp out of seven different plants and fibers, which they added to cotton pulp and other natural ingredients. Then bowlful by bowlful, they poured a total of 120 pounds of this pulp into 28 sections on the creek bed over a span of 7 days.

After that, they let the pulp dry over the next 7 days, leaving it exposed to the elements: the wind, the sun, and perhaps curious animals. Next, they painstakingly and delicately lifted the sections off the creek and turned themover, exposing their undersides for the first time. In the gallery, these undersides are now the front sides. Also, according to the handout, they did the casting about five years ago.

At this point in my adventure in art appreciation, I need to pause and think of the main qualities of all the information that I have gathered so far. One of the main qualities that I notice right away is that all those people had to have been in great physical shape to do all of that work. They must have been really dedicated to stick with it. So what they were doing must have been very important to them. I wonder if there are art projects that I would be that dedicated to? How aout you?

They have done something that is outside of my experience. Yet they have carefully taken the time to share it with me so that I can benefit from it. They seem respectful of me and others who might not understand. Furthermore, the artist Betsy Damon asked other artists to work with her, which is another sort of sharing.

Another interesting thing is that their way of relating to nature is very different from what I usually see. They most certainly weren't causing any water pollution, which is the subject of the video being shown on the TV in the gallery. Instead of dominating nature by using it as a trash can or tearing it up to build shopping malls, they carefully and patiently made a cast of it with natural materials.

At this time, I have finished most of my head work. So it's time for me to switch my emotions back on and listen to what my heart is telling me. I get the feeling that instead of fighting nature with a "man against nature" sort of attitude, these artists are engaged in both a conversation and dance with it. I also get the feeling that nature is their friend. And just as you and I like to take snapshots of our friends for our memories, Betsy Damon and the other artists have taken a "snapshot" of their friend. Furthermore, by carrying a dialogue on with nature, they seem to have gotten its permission. Also, it seems to be a sad memory about the ever-increasing loss of nature's clean water. Perhaps this cast paper "snapshot" of the creek bed is the "memory" that the title of the piece refers to.

Ealier, I said that I felt a need for a change because I had outgrown my little perceptions of how "life is supposed to be." I think that this artwork has provided me with a bigger pereption than I had before because I feel inspired to improve my friendship with nature. How about you? Through my description and analysis of this artwork, did any of your perceptions about nature get bigger? Furthermore, do you feel like trying to find other artworks that can help you when you feel that you have outgrown any of your current perceptions?

ARTLINE:
Drawing a Line of Communication between 4-H Art Leaders.
Volume 5, Issue 2 Spring (1989): 2B-3B
The United States Department of Agriculture, Wisconsin Counties Cooperating,
University of Wisconsin-Extension's Cooperative Extension Programs.
Designed by Susan Farmer an Associate Professor in the Continuing Education in the Arts
of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Wisconsin Four-H and Youth Arts Specialist.