Iceflow
 

Iceflow is a series of works. Some of the earlier versions can be seen below. Many of them are kind of experiments before the initial piece to be shown in May at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art's Drawing Outside the Lines exhibit. See the most recent version here.

A 4'-5' tall column will be built from bricks of ice that melts onto and obscures a drawing it is built upon. The drawing imagery is of magnified views of the ice structure's melting process and imagery of my visual code of processes of change, action and renewal. This piece has to do specifically with the layering of history in ice cores and their loss over time through melting. Rather than holding on to the history (and the imagery of the drawing), it is allowed to flow and join the layers above and below it to develop a new imagery (the ink-bled drawing, water stain, and absence of stain). This piece also relates to our layering of time, perceived value and use of land and space, and the temporary nature of our presence and actions.

This piece experiments with change—setting up a controlled space where natural processes are allowed to take place and no mistakes are possible. It limits the usual control on an art piece as you try to force it into position or arrangement —keeping the control in the platform and imagery which, in itself, is in constant movement and relation to one another.

Ice coring that is done in Greenland, Antarctica, and at temperate and tropical level glaciers reveal a lot about our past in many ways. Discovering what the ice is "saying" has been a large part of the global warming/climate change discussion. While this piece isn't specifically about the climate change discussion, part of its purpose is derived from the concept of living with a small impact. What ice cores have revealed are our industrialized impact on the world. While this was no doubt an unavoidable step in the process of human development, it forces us to think about change and how unpredictable it can be due to careless actions. The lack of considering consequences has put us in the situation we are in. While I don't feel there are evils of technology, there is still the need for wise choices, creative solutions and the idea of need as opposed to excess.

See additional notes below for more of my babbling about ice and processes of change.

References: Critical Mass, Philip Ball; The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind's Hidden Complexities, Gilles Faucconier & Mark Turner; The Secret Knowledge of Water, Craig Childs; Life's Matrix: The Biography of Water, Philip Ball, Riddle of the Ice , Myron Arms; Two Mile Time Machine, Richard Alley; ICE: The Nature, the History and the Uses of an Astonishing Substance, Mariana Gosnell; numerous articles from the OSU Byrd Polar Research Center; information from NOAA's Paleoclimatology department

 
 
 
initial drawing
video still of ice construction
(at beginning)
final drawing
 
 
 
 

ever really want to sit and watch ice melt? well, now's your chance!
watch the video here (you must have Quicktime)
the final piece will be a larger ice structure.

 
     
 
 
 
previous Iceflow projects
  

This piece deals with slow and fast aspects of change - literal and metaphoric. Something stable is contained within an unstable only to fall into a natural state of ruin and renewal.

Like pieces I’ve done in the past, this piece always has change occurring – melting, dropping, unraveling, tangling, weathering, piling. The way we process thought is called conceptual blending. When a building or space has lost its original purpose, it is in a state of fluidity. Physical substances fluctuate from one state to another (such as a gas, fluid and solid). The areas in between change are fluid. But at some point in all of these processes, a critical moment of change occurs. Numerous thoughts and input become an idea or realization. A building’s materials are collected to build a new structure or fall apart, giving in to gravity. Ice becomes water.

Iceflow also alludes to how ice functions in life – how it preserves time, revealing past ages in fossils and chemical content. It is also something that is disappearing (or melting) in many areas of the world due to global warming where glaciers are receding and affecting drinking water supplies. In an area such as a desert, it seems simply to disappear. In this way, the change that ice goes through from a solid to liquid represents not just a scientific critical change but also a cultural and social one.