In 2009, I was awarded a National Science Foundations Artist and Writers Grant to travel to West Antarctica to sketch, photograph, and observe the WAIS Ice Core Project field camp and surrounding ice sheet plateau. I recently returned from this journey and am now working on a suite of etchings and multimedia prints based on this source material. My artwork will be exhibited, published in a catalog, and shared with the public through a series of artist talks and school presentations.
I think of ice as a metaphor for the deep memory of the world and both the frailty and strength of our planet’s ecosystems. Ice offers stories of the planet and our effect on that story through millennia. The resulting artwork will document this important research project in the visual language of a contemporary artist.
Follow my journey through weekly blog postings, beginning in December, 2009.