Nature Works

I'm reviving my spirit by taking a class called Media Blend at MOCA with my favorite teacher Donna Iona Drozda. She always stretches each of her students in ways you didn't know you had in you, but in the most thoughtful and gentle way.

The class is an exploration of media and the challenge to each student is to create a project using media in a way that is new and different from our normal ways of working.

I am very drawn to the work of environmental sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. Out of his body of work, the pieces that call to me the most are beautiful vignettes of natural materials in situ that change and degrade over time. Since my mantra this year is to live more simply and lightly on the land, I want my project to be ephemeral and not something I would end up storing in a closet. I want to create something outside a la Andy Goldsworthy.

My first idea was hatched by listening to wind shaking these wonderfully contorted oak leaves outside on the grounds of the MOCA campus. To some it might sound like winter's death rattle, but to my ears the sounds reminded me of those gentle, relaxing rain sticks. I had found a unique looking stick on the ground so my first concept was to sew a curtain of leaves to the stick, then suspend them between two trees so the wind could blow through them.

First, I researched types of biodegradable thread so the curtain would naturally disintegrate. Then I needed lots of leaves, so I went off in search around town for enough quantity of twisted leaves to make a curtain. Two things I learned: not all oak leaves dry twisted, and bringing together all sorts of leaves from different locations defeats the idea of fashioning something on site. Mental head slap. Back to the drawing board as they say.