Central America Weekly Article
The Survivor
Ceramic Workshop in Central America: The Rainforest and the Volcanoes
Published on Aug 31st in the Tico Times

Don’t forget to visit the Art Program learn about these great course

Published on Aug 31st in the Tico Times
By Tien-Shun Lee

The first day art students Sarah Dahlberg and Lisa Glogower began working on a class project to make a piece of "ecological art with spiritual dimensions," they walked out of their project site completely covered with clay.

Dahlberg and Glowgower are two out of eight students enrolled in the Mixed Media in the Rainforest course at La Suerte biological research station.

"This is an art and ecology class where we use all natural materials and we think of being sensitive to the site," says course instructor Debbie Matthew. "The art is inspired by biological ecology, deep ecology where there is a spiritual connection, and social ecology."

While students in the primate behavior and ecology courses spend time conducting experiments in the rainforest to study animals and plants, students in Matthew's art class spend time discovering natural art studios in the rainforest, and "bonding" with those sites.

"There was energy and there was light dancing across the stream here," says Glogower of her project site. "It was never boring and rarely ever quiet the feeling we got was kind of like the feeling when you meet people and you know that you're going to get along well."

To help students become sensitized to their environment, Matthews tells students to write stream-of-consciousness in their journals about their surroundings, paying attention to what they see, hear and smell, and their feelings of comfort or discomfort. She also has students focus on textures and patterns in the rainforest, and tells them to think about reproducing or using these patterns when constructing their art pieces.

Students construct their art pieces in an enclosed studio as well as in the natural surroundings of the rain forest. The final product is an "installation" work, inseparable from its natural environment. Like its surroundings, it changes with time and is biodegradable.

"It's fun because we get to pick up anything off the floor and say, "hey we can use this for something," said Carrie Watterworth, a recent college graduate who majored in art.

One of the students' favorite materials is rattan, a stretchy vine that can be tied, braided and weaved like rope or string. Other natural art materials include seed pods, which curl up when dried and stretch out when wet, hibiscus plants, which can be boiled to make a blue-grey dye, and chote, a seed which can be mashed up to form a red powder.

For their "deep ecology" project, students spent four to six hours a day discovering and exploring their site, and thinking of ways to present it to an audience in a meaningful way.

"Most of our inspiration came from just being at the site for long periods of time and seeing what could happen," says Ephraim Peniston, who presented his site with his partner Chad Plunket by pouring bags of red clay into the river. The flow of water was punctuated by aesthetic constructions of circles, pyramids and curved lines of stones.

Plunket further connected with his site by having Matthews bury him in the sand after lunch one day.

"I don't want to be a separate entity anymore," he said. "I don't want to walk on the land anymore, I want to be the land."

Matthews encourages her art students to mix with the science students at La Suerte. Some mornings, her students go out on walks with bird or primate watchers. Other times, science students are invited to watch art students present their projects.

"It's a very interesting mix, us with the scientists," said Meg Glasser, as she pointed out floating bamboo gates which were left over from her second art project. "We come from very different views. We're always looking and hearing and noticing how the environment affects our five senses, rather than thinking about how much we know about these specimen."

According to Matthews, mixing art with ecology and nature is a growing discipline which encourages viewers to question and gain a deeper understanding of their surroundings.

In her course at La Suerte as well as in her classes at the University of Wyoming in the United States, Matthews encourages her students to think of art as more than commodities.

"There is a strong history of disposable art, with no waste," she says. "The art goes back into nature."

The course has helped many of the students focus on what type of art they want to produce in the future.

"I want to integrate my art into the community," said Watterworth. "This experience is one of the most awesome experiences I've had in art."

Art courses are offered only in the summer months and cost $1,500, transfers, food and lodging included.

Back To The Top