Alternative Field Guide

 

Core group participants' work in the July 2008
Ohio Arts Council funded artist-in-residence program
at the Lloyd Library and Museum
with visual artist,
Kate Kern

Slide show
by Kate Kern

For more info on Ohio Arts Council Arts Learning programs:

http://www.oac.state.oh.us/grantsprogs/ArtsLearning.asp

All images ©Kate Kern 2008
Artists's statements ©belongs to each author/artist
All other text ©Kate Kern

 

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

The central vision that inspired me leading up to the residency was thinking of our participants as guides into the knowledge/memories/experience contained within the Lloyd Library and Museum. I saw each of us as entering the liminal space of the library and, while bravely following our own path, also creating a trail to guide others in their own search for connection and meaning.

As you view the exhibit, you are seeing evidence of this trail in the work displayed in the gallery, in the sampling of books from the collection that we used, and in the slide show of digital images (available on the Lloyd website after the show opening) that documents a different part of that journey.

We have used the material in the Lloyd in various ways: by selecting details and arranging them in new ways or changing their scale; by searching for an overall pattern; by connecting/layering/inserting our experiences and our memories; through the magic of juxtaposition and the power of positive/negative spatial relationships.

This is an exciting time in the OAC's residency program as it is moving beyond being an entirely schools based program to providing opportunities to all learners—in and out of school.

Since my first residency in 1983 I have worked with students, teachers, and staff, at an amazing variety of schools around Ohio. While this setting is enjoyable, I am also committed to a new challenge of taking the residency out of the school and making it work with and for other sites.

The residency program brings an individual artist to a specific setting to make art for a limited, intensely focused time with a specific group of participants. This group of participants is called the core group. The residency is intended to provide participants with exposure to how a particular artist thinks or works. The residency is about process. The artist designs and facilitates an art making process inspired by the overlap between the artist's studio practice and the possibilities presented by each unique site.

The participants bring the process and the residency to life.

 

The following images show the work process of the core group participants – culminating in the exhibition Alternative Field Guide and the companion exhibition of books that inspired each artist from the Lloyd's collection.

Each artist's statement from the exhibition is also included.

Left: core group researching Lloyd books Right: Core group using obsolete Lloyd card catalogs as part of an idea generating activity.

More than a Weed!

The Lloyd Library and Museum is a hidden treasure! I joined the group
working to create “The Alternative Field Guide” without any preconceived idea of what the program involved or what I might do. But, I took inspiration from a
display of children's books about birds, and I looked for something that would connect with a child or my experience with my children. The dandelion came to mind. It was one of the first flowers that attracted the attention of my children and perhaps the only flower they were allowed to pick freely at an early age.

The Lloyd collection holds an 1887 series: Kohler's Medizinal-Pflanzen . Among
the plates in this botanical work there is an outstanding chromolithography plate
of the dandelion. Out of respect for the beauty of the lithograph, a copy of the
original plate serves as a background for my art. My work is an attempt to
emphasize the significance of the dandelion as an edible, medicinal herb and its role in understanding the life cycle. Supporting text and stories are in print form.

In the process, I may have become a crusader for the lowly dandelion—
it is more than a weed!

- Corrine Gutjahr

Among the Himalayas

The inspiration for this piece was our daughter's (Sophie) great love and
interest in the snow leopard. Nearly six years old, Sophia has always loved and
appreciated all animals. During the past year or so, the snow leopard has
become one of her special favorites. Because we wanted this project to be a
family one, we knew we could capture Sophia's interest and imagination by
choosing the snow leopards' home as our topic.

Lloyd Library's rich collection of travel and exploration books provided endless
images, information, and ideas about the Himalayas that we could re-purpose for our artwork—we even “borrowed” the title of our piece from one of Lloyd's books. Most of the images in our work are representative of the flora, fauna, and natural history of the snow leopards' habitat. Other elements include scanned images of flowers collected and pressed by Sophia for use in “Sophia's Snow Leopard Garden,” clip-art of other animals found in the Himalayas and colored by Sophia, as well as clip-art butterflies displaying quotes from a book in the Heran library, Taming the Tiger Within: Meditations on Transforming Difficult Emotions by Thich Nhat Hanh , Buddhist Master.

Somehow, without premeditation, the structure of the final piece is somewhat reminiscent of the colorful Tibetan Prayer Flags flown by Buddhists worldwide.

- The Heran Family (Anna, Maggie, and Sophie)

Flow

We are water and constantly require water. One of its characteristics is flow, and flow is essential in bodies of living water as well as in our own bodies. Flow is both universal and very personal. I like the idea that flow can also be a metaphor for the unimpeded movement of our creativity. I have noticed recently that a good idea will often flow to me when I am standing in the shower. Does that ever happen to you?

The belief that water has curative value is not a new one. People have bathed in healing springs and “taken the waters” since ancient times. In the 19th century a whole regimen of how to therapeutically treat the body with water, both externally and internally, was developed by an Austrian and soon made its way to America. The Lloyd Library collection contains several books from the mid-nineteenth century that outline this water-cure system, also called hydropathy or hydrotherapy. During a time when disease, accidents and epidemics were ever-present threats, the system offered an alternative treatment that was not as harsh or debilitating as many. Cincinnatians could find a water-cure establishment both here and in nearby Yellow Springs.

The Lloyd Library books inspired my exhibition piece that suggests a shower where “drops” illustrate various water-cure treatments, including head, hip and foot baths, wet sheet wraps, and several types of showers. Behind the “drops” is an enlargement of the human vein system taken from a water-cure manual to remind us of the flow within the body.

The Lloyd Library books inspired my exhibition piece that suggests a shower where “drops” illustrate various water-cure treatments, including head, hip and foot baths, wet sheet wraps, and several types of showers. Behind the “drops” is an
enlargement of the human vein system taken from a water-cure manual
to remind us of the flow within the body.

A basin of water quotes sits in
the shower, and visitors are invited to take a quote as a souvenir.

Something I read recently that is worth thinking about: In the near future, fresh
water could become a political commodity, like oil. It could become a
bargaining chip between those who have it and those who want it.
The difference is that water, unlike oil, is a necessity for life.

- Cecie S. Chewning

Shaman

Where did these cures originate and did (do) they really work?

These were some of the questions I had when I found Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia at the Lloyd. Remedies which seemed based in folklore were held in the same esteem as medicinal plants found as the basis of many of our medicines today.

As I explored the Lloyd collection and found illustrations of plants used for
various affected body organs, I thought of shamans and their role as mediums between the visible world and the spiritual world. As the shaman performs the function of doctor and healer, they rely on the spiritual world to return the
patient's spirit to their body, relying on both the real and
supernatural to effect a cure.

I have created my shaman to give the impression of reality and fantasy,
clothing him in the both the physical world and the world of illusion.

-Diane Glos

Pregnancy, Poetry, and Old Trees

...was inspired by my current and second pregnancy, my appreciation for poetry, and a personal connection I feel to trees. I am also often awestruck by the variety of topics in the Lloyd's collections, anything ranging from midwifery to poetry. The poem excerpt I used is from Harriet L. Keeler's Our Northern Autumn , and seems to convey in words what the images—a lone dead tree, fetuses, labyrinths, and leaves—mean to me: a multiplicity of connections.

I see trees as witnesses to our lives. They stand the test of time as we know it. When we are gone, they will remain to see a new generation. Seeing my son recently play beneath the 60 year old pine in my grandmother's front yard (the same tree I, as a child, used to hide inside) brought this feeling even closer. In the image of the baby and the placenta and the picture of the baby in utero , the baby appears suspended on the page, held loosely to the placenta by the umbilical cord, and so, it is suspended in my piece. I am struck by the way the veins look like branches of a tree and the cord like a winding trail in the woods.

A labyrinth represents our life journey. When I walk a labyrinth or hike a trail in the woods, it is a time of going within to hear my thoughts and connect with my heart and spirit. The female reproductive system with its fallopian tubes is a labyrinth of sorts, the uterus with developing baby symbolizing the center. Being pregnant, I find my physical body, with its bones standing strong like the oak, bearing witness to that first journey taken by my baby. If the bare oak symbolizes a death of sorts, the green leaves in my piece are the life, new growth, as are the images of plant cells and developing fetal membranes.

- Heather Snyder

Untitled

My lifelong curiosity about the natural world lead me to the profession of Medical Illustration, wherein, I create detailed, anatomically accurate images for use in health and medical education. My process involves painstaking research and careful attention to detail to produce drawings that are understandable and un-intimidating for a non-professional audience. I believe that inviting, clear illustrations are essential to understanding difficult or frightening concepts.

Exploring the richly illustrated books on natural science at the Lloyd was a rare treat! Most of the books were from an era without access to cameras, much less movies, television, or computers. The artists were required to very carefully observe and record every detail of structure and coloration in order to transmit an understanding of the plants and animals s/he illustrated.

In my own life and travels, I have ventured into situations in which I am uncomfortable and sometimes fearful. I have found that pushing myself to understand unfamiliar environments and cultures continues to enrich my life and eradicates a lot of my own “fear of the unknown.”

As I explored the books devoted to exotic insects, wildlife, and plants of the world, it occurred to me that most of us make decisions to live surrounded by the familiar—what we perceive as “safe.” We often create our own islands of neighborhoods, schools, and friends to intentionally isolate ourselves from the “perceived danger” of unknown people, practices, and opinions. Even in our travels, we often choose the comfort of a guided group rather than risk an unplanned experience or encounter.

In my work for this exhibition, I focused on perception rather than reality (not an easy task for a scientific illustrator!). The island images are early stages in the life cycle of marine algae, scanned and enlarged. I intentionally made them more symmetrical and uncolored to convey safety and calm. Surrounding the islands are insects and marine creatures, distorted to become more asymmetrical, and colorized with red and orange tones that imply “danger.”

- Marcia Hartsock

[Not] A Librarian's Knot Garden

In the past, librarians tied card catalog cards together with a “librarian's knot.” String was threaded through the hole in the cards and tied around a pencil in order to allow enough room for the cards to be flipped back and forth without being too tight.

I remembered this knot after I had decided to use the English knot garden diagrams in my art project. My mobile garden incorporates the diagrams, some three-dimensional flower illustrations, and the catalog cards representing the books I used.

Although the Lloyd still maintained a card catalog when I came to work here in 1993 and, as a cataloger I contributed a great many cards to it until we went “online” in 1996, I never learned how to tie the “librarian's knot.”

- Betsy Kruthoffer

Fatherland: A Meat Garden Journey

“It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.”
Anne Sexton, “A Small Journal,” entry for January 1, 1972

The overlapping images here explore the conflicting messages received by a child. Nurture and slaughter, alien and familiar, art and science, memory and reality.
How do these ideas coexist in a child's mind?
And effect perceptions as an adult?

- Janice Kagermeier

Untitled

The theme of this piece is “pre-science,” or pre-modern ideas about science, medicine, and natural history. Other themes include physical progressions and the development of a taxonomy based on the images used. The form of the piece is a double-sided accordion-fold book, with different sets of images folding out from either side. The arrangement shows a progression of animal images with increasingly more human elements as you near the center of the book, with half of the images focused on animals with scales and the other half on animals with fur. The opposite side of the book shows a progression of plant related images with increasingly more human/animal elements, all working toward the book's center.

Initially, I was interested in using medieval artwork, such as illuminated manuscripts. And, while there is some of that present, I expanded my choices to other images that I saw as similar in concept. I combined medieval illustrations with those of mythical animals, as both reflected an earlier way of explaining the world. Along the way, another concept emerged from the art. When arranged a certain way, some of the images began to suggest a progression from one type of life to a combination of others. Since some of the images used animals and others plants, the piece is divided to reflect those different groupings.

There are a few goals in creating this work. One is to create a multi-dimensional piece that changes based on how it is viewed. Two is to arrange the images in such a way as to create different areas of a taxonomy or different levels of a hierarchy. The form of the artwork developed as something that would both contain and display my chosen images. Because the images were taken from books, and the project was conceived and developed in a library, I used the form of a book, albeit a non-traditional one.

- Alex Herrlein

The Gift of the Oak Leavings

Oak trees are special to me. I love the shape of the leaves, the strength of the wood, and the beauty of each tree. I am also a lover of the leaves of books, libraries, and plants in general. The Lloyd brings together many of the things I love: old books, gardening books, texts of herbs, and detailed photographs of bark, leaves, flowers and complete plants.

Two books from the Lloyd collection inspired “The Gift of the Oak Leavings.” The texts are Histoire des chênes de l'Amérique ,... (1801) by André Michaux and Memorials of the oak tree: with notices of the classical and historical associations connected with it (1863) by Isabella Burt.

This work is very much my personal story of the love and the loss of hundreds of trees illegally cut from our land for the personal gain of a man who professes to be a “nature lover.” This work is interactive as is the whole natural world. You can take the ‘leaves' and change the seasons by adding, subtracting or letting them fall to the earth. Please take a ‘leaf', read what it is about, and replace it where it suits you. Allow the ‘leaf' to tell you a part of your story just as this work has allowed me to know more of my own. Although the trees from our hillside are no longer in physical form, they continue to heal me. I am very grateful to all who are part of the Alternative Guide to the Lloyd and to all who have supported my recovery from the loss of so many beautiful strong trees. Part of the gift I have received is making new friends with the caretakers and the“leaves” that are forever preserved at the Lloyd.

- Katherine Meyer

Oh My Aching Ankle

My journey here at the Lloyd Library started when Kate Kern showed a piece of her work that had a skeleton of a pig's foot. The proverbial light bulb went off and my adventure began.

After recently breaking my ankle and the long road to recovery, my exploration through many books here at the library brought to me the history of how fractures were treated in the early days of medicine and how we have come to the present with nutrition awareness and more modern devices that still resemble the old.

- Melissa Smith

The Alchemist Meets God and
The Pill of Immortality

The natural substances of the living earth, whether the source is plant, animal, or mineral, come to real fruition under the hand of the human being. It is our task to transform that which is around us, and in the process of that transformation we, ourselves, are transformed.

The transmutation of base metals into gold (Alchemy), and the attainment of the “pill of immortality”—the Philosopher's Stone—are seemingly earthly goals. But for the spiritual alchemist, the process becomes a path to enlightenment. It is not the gold they strive for, but a “golden heart.”

I view my life upon this earth as a process. It will not end with my having to come to fruition as a completed human being, but it will end. And in that context, the process becomes everything.

“ The secret comes after the gold.”

- Susan Gilbert

Untitled

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
— Albert Einstein

I feel honored to have had the opportunity to work with the rich source of materials at the Lloyd Library. One book would lead to another and another... But, eventually, I had to stop and put something together.

What I first thought when presented with the idea of this project—”mistletoe.” I have been intrigued with mistletoe (Iscador —European Mistletoe) ever since I discovered that injections are being used successfully in Germany to treat cancer; and, Mistletoe is found mostly growing on oak trees. My other thought was about mushrooms. For the last 3 years, I have been making a fermented tea, Kombucha , a medicinal drink made from a mushroom/fungus. The “mushroom” ( Reishi ) and mistletoe both have healing properties. So I proceeded to find what I
could on those subjects.

One of the illustrations I found had cherubs displaying mushrooms under an uprooted oak. So mistletoe, mushrooms, and an oak tree are my project images. A conversation with Kate resulted in my deciding to put together a collage, which turned into a sort of kaleidoscope which created even more interesting patterns.

I am pleased with the colors of the collage and how it all came together. It is a real challenge to absorb the many different disciplines—art, science, nature, and biology, and be able to present it in a meaningful way.

-Nikki G. Orlemann

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The three weeks spent actually working on residency activities in July 2008 were preceded by a tremendous amount of planning. The residency could not have happened without the sustained attention and effort of Maggie Heran , Director of the Lloyd, and her staff. The Lloyd staff not only participated in the art making activities of the residency but also assisted all the other core group participants in finding (and copying) materials within the Lloyd's collection.

A special acknowledgement goes to Anna Heran , the Lloyd's archivist, for her unfailing skill, patience, and enthusiasm, as she efficiently took care of our digital image needs.

Thanks to: