Before
you are images from my Landscape Mosaics - Coastal Landscape
series. The images are arranged according to ecosystem zonation,
from the estuary to the salt marsh, from the ecotone, to the
sand plain and to the dunes. Landscape Mosaics blend art, science
and new technologies to interpret sensitive and endangered
landscapes for a wide audience in public settings and in print.
The salt marsh is that protective line of saltwater wetland
edging the shore. It serves as a defense between land and sea
and is vulnerable to development and pollution. Landscape Mosaics
uses art to focus attention on these critical landscapes.
The
Spartina Landscape Mosaic was set on a tidal river. 1,500 hand
painted posts were set along a tidal meander in staggered intervals
depicting the slow emergence of growth in early spring, the
rapid greening of late spring, the steady growth of summer,
the seeding of autumn, and the slow decline to dormancy. I
charted over one hundred colors in the Spartina marsh through
the seasons. When I painted, I always blended colors and kept
a sheet of the swatches arranged in a hierarchical way. Landscape
Mosaics examines color, charted in the field and from my photographs
of the landscapes to create blended pixel color palettes. An
installation of color panels in Wellfleet, MA set hundreds
of panels into the marsh in a study of light and perception
using color. The studies of color and pattern have been translated
into a Landscape Mosaics book and transformed into large-scale
site installations and as personal explorations- pushing the
idea of the hand made paper art book with the Leaves in Grass
series.
I
am interested in light, color, and the science of color change
in the landscape. I have measured the color in the field and
found that color variation is the result of environmental factors.
Nutrients, water, oxygenation, topography and seasonal change
affect the color palette of the plants. Color serves as a barometer
of the systems health. Even a centimeter of topographic change
can affect the coloration and dormancy.
Landscape
Mosaics is reaching a point of closure, as I work toward the
publication of books and articles. I am interested in publishing
the work in order to reach a wider audience and to educate
the public through the art and science of color in the landscape.
In future, I wish to further translate the idea into colored
light, film and projections in gallery, architectural and landscape
installations. These explorations use the innovations of art,
science and technology to explain ecological principles through
the seasons with color analysis. The Spiral Nebula is based
on the flow pattern of water and air. After working into the
early morning hours this winter on the Spartina pixel mosaic,
I looked out on a moonlit, snowy night to see the wind swirling
the ice crystals into enfolding forms. The Spiral became prismatic
in the moonlight and beamed color across the landscape. The
Spiral Nebula attempts to create the experience of the archetypal
flow pattern and color experienced, in what a meteorologist
called - a unique weather phenomenon.
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