Fermilab A-I-R

Happy news! I applied for Fermilab's Artist-in-Residence Program. It's something I've been wanting to do for years but my portfolio wasn't where I wanted it to be until this year. The slide show above is the pool of images I used for the application.

In other news, I'll be in Art 101: A Regional Art Exhibition at the Oak Park Art League September 1 through September 30. The juror is Sarah Cox the curator from the Elmhurst Art Museum.

At work we just finished up the summer concert series and we are promoting Lewis Achenbach's show. I am working on the next show for Dorothy Bury Shaw's beautiful art and poetry exhibit. She is our spotlight artist for Arts DuPage Month.

Here's my statement of intent from the Fermilab application:
STATEMENT OF INTENT
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I have been an avid Fermilab Arts and Culture fan for years. I’ve attended many art shows, science talks, and tours at the facility. I’ve taken my children, their friends, and nephews to the Fermilab annual open house several times. I have always had an interest in keeping up with cutting-edge science news. Although I cannot claim to be able to understand many of the science papers or  technology specs surrounding cutting-edge laboratory experiments, I’m an avid reader of popular science books, blogs, and  podcasts. Science discovery can be beautiful or chilling, but knowing how the world works and how to work with it is just as much a human undertaking as the Arts.
 
I understand that Robert Wilson, Fermilab’s founder, had a similar philosophy. Although scientists no longer expect new science to always be beautiful, artists will always have the freedom to find the beauty in scientific revelation and the wonder of discovery.

I hope that the attached portfolio of images of my past work will adequately convey how much science, mathematics, and technology inspire my work.
 
‘Floe’ is a series in progress. ‘Floe’ is a documentation of extant geologic ice and appreciation of climate science.
‘Oceanic Panopticon’ was created to celebrate Earth Day 2021. It is a woven bead mosaic of the Pacific ocean (courtesy of satellite imaging) on a convex security mirror. It is an appreciation of climate science. 
‘Juicy Sunrise’ is a wistful piece about the promise of fusion energy. It was created on a disco ball. When lit correctly, it appears to have a glowing center in the middle like the NIF’s fusion reactor at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.
‘Outgrowth’ is a series of installations built from soft, pliable, hyperbolic biomimetic forms that I wove out of just beads and thread.
“π Series” is woven in a continuous expanding circle using color coded digits of π. Creating them was like orbiting around the ‘moon,’ ‘sun,’ and abstract field of view in the night sky.  
‘Galaxy Cluster’ is a mosaic of woven galaxies on an upcycled globe vase. 
‘Cosmos’ is woven to suggest a black hole.

My intent, if given the opportunity to be an Artist in Residence at Fermilab, is to learn as much as I can about the current and proposed experiments being worked on at the laboratory. I would then interpret what I’d learned about those endeavors into beautiful works of art. The Fermilab Art Gallery is a great exhibition site. I would take the exhibition space into consideration while designing the body of work.

Thank you for considering me for Fermilab’s Artist-in-Residence Program for 2023. It’s a thrill for me just to apply.  Either way, I always enjoy the artists that the judges choose each year, and I know I will be delighted again this year!