Join us for the Opening Reception and meet the artists Libby Reuter, Joshua Rowan, and Sun Smith-Foret
The Audubon Center at Riverlands, National Great Rivers Museum, and Jacoby Arts Center partner in a Nature + Art series to heighten awareness of our intrinsic assets. Here, art exhibits of pieced, painted textile, glass sculpture, and photography compel a closer look at our most vital resource, fresh water, near the convergence of three powerful rivers and the Mississippi Flyway. Running Water: Riverwork Project and Watershed Cairns offers a new way of seeing water, our most critical resource. The visual interplay of delicate glass, luminous photographs, and energized runs of textile, creates an unusual flow of imagination and dimension of relationship. At each venue, artists’ talks, interactive workshops, regional music, documentary film, and environmental speakers create a rich awareness of our natural heritage, initiate dialogue, and empower citizen science.
Artists Libby Reuter and Joshua Rowan began Watershed Cairns in 2011. “Similar to the stones that hikers pick up and stack to mark a trail, the glass cairns are created by assembling glass found at local thrift stores and mark water's path from land to river. We use them to mark nature's beauty in unexpected local places. Because the glass is fragile, we remove the cairns after they are photographed. Many of the cairns will be displayed with their images in the three exhibit venues,” says Reuter.
Sun Smith-Foret’s Riverwork Project is a more than 300-foot-long pieced, layered, painted and embellished textile, based on techniques from African American Improvisational Quilt Making.
“Our land and rivers are not just rocks and water, but vessels for the lives of all the people who live in the place,” explains Watershed Cairns artist Libby Reuter. “The Riverwork Project adds this human dimension to all the exhibits. Segments of the long textile depict a kaleidoscope of people's experiences with rivers. Diverse perspectives are shared by incorporating artwork from local artists and with text about polluted water and the titles of contemporary films featuring rivers.”
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