In looking for more continuing education opportunities for myself around Boston I came upon MassArt’s upcoming Fiber Arts class on Sculptural Knitting, which would be one way to describe my yurt project. In the course description, there was a link to artist Nathalie Miebach, I assume because her work is some kind of awesome.
This piece is called Arctic Dun – Solar Exploration Device for the Arctic and is made of reed, wood, plastic, steel and data. Data? Oh yeah, Nathalie uses her work to represent how art an science collide. Her pieces are the physical representations of data gleaned from scientific observations.
A little closer to home the above is called Boston Tides and as Nathalie describes it, “Using a base of 24 hours, this piece converts various layers of data (Jan-Dec 2005) related to the gravitational influence of both Sun and Moon on tides recorded at Boston Harbor. The inner structure converts sunrise/set and moonrise/set data into the woven structure, with every weave representing one hour. Additional data translated include tide readings, moon phases and the solar path in relation to the horizon.”
It’s hard to decide what to value first, the art or the science behind Nathalie’s pieces. I feel like I love the knitting and weaving she’s doing slightly more than the science of the works but I do respect those qualities as well. It seems like they dictate some of the colors as well as the shapes that the pieces take on. I wonder if it’s easier or harder to create within those constraints or if they’re not constraints at all.
Aesthetically they’re so beautiful and quite large, several feet (like 6 or more). The thing that I think is really admirable is how polished they look. I’ve never seen her works in person but the photos look so sharp that they must be fairly perfectly constructed.
The above is from her series, Changing Waters, which looked at the meteorological and oceanic interactions within the Gulf of Maine. 33 Feet wide this pieces is! So incredible!
Tags: art, science, sculpture, weaving
Cady
Hey Kate! New blog layout looks good
A lot of Nathalie’s work is up at the Fuller Craft Museum currently, go check it out if you get a chance… She sometimes teaches classes at MassArt, usually in continuing ed!
xo Cady
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