Northern California

Deborah Kennedy at the de Saisset Museum

magine you are alone. You enter a dimly lit room housing an elegantly con­structed, absolutely still landscape. The only sug­gestion of living presence comes from piped-in sounds on a looped tape.

Birds chirping turns to dogs barking turns to birds chirping turns to heartbeats turns to birds chirping turns to drum­beats turns to birds chirping turns to a car engine revving. Enormous decapitated cast heads of varying sizes and skin tones lay strewn like boulders on a bed of sand at the foot of delicate, bronze, leafless trees. Several anatomically correct metal hearts are randomly spread like small stones. One small, life­like bird perches motionless.

The experience of being inside the installation E01"thWise is disori­enting, particularly because of an initially welcoming quiet elegance which functions effectively as a kind of lure. Several minutes of reflection cause one to realize that everything about this landscape has gone terribly wrong, and what we are potentially wimessing is the aftermath of our own destruction. Most disturbing are the detached, disembodied, inflated heads, keeled over from the overwhelm­ing illusion of self-importance. The super-heads also suffer from a debilitating lack of sight, leaving them isolated and without vision. Only the sounds continue without respite, like threads of memory which somehow refuse to die.

A reminder to walk lightly on the sur­face of the earth is one underlying mes­sage embodied in the wood-chip carpeted floor of Project Nexus, the second installa­tion of the Nature Speaks exhibition. While the aural landscape of this piece is similar to that of EorthWtse, the mood created is enigmatic rather than apoca­lyptic, and renewal appears as a possibili­ty. A floor-to-ceiling wall of delicately floating leaves creates the backdrop for a space seemingly designed for reflection and meditation on the nature of sound and the pulse of the universe. Beyond our reach behind the leaf-wall, floats an open, red wooden circle, creating additional circle-shadows which in collaboration with other rounded forms function con­ceptually as a kind of loosely linked chain around the space.

A second of these circle-links is embedded in the earthlike carpet which at first appears to be a pond of sand

enclosed within a blue wooden frame. Closer inspection reveals that the hard, grainy surface actually functions as a drum, inviting participants to contribute to the beat of the exhibition and perhaps by extension, the world. Participants are also invited to strum on the third circle­link, Ring ofLife, a round, standing sound-sculpture tying together over and over by means of piano strings, the words "gravity," "air," "humans," "plants," "earth," "animals," "fire," "temperature," "sun," "ancestors," "water" and "loca­tion." The model graphically illustrates the interconnectedness of all living things. Above the instrument floats a small, angel-like bronze tree with flower shoots reaching upward. As a counter­point, a human heart attached to an elab­orate root system leads downward

Deborah Kennedy, Project Nexus, installation, in Nature Speaks, at the de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara (Photo: James Dewrance.)

towards the floor of the installation. The possibility for interaction on the

part of viewers through the creation of music gives Project Nexus a more upbeat feel than EorthWise. Both use sound as an integral element in the creation of reflec­tive spaces in which repetition, vibration and rhythm are used as connecting threads reminding us simultaneously of the strength and the tenuousness of the first and the last beats of life. ature speaks here, but softly, sadly, like the last refrain of a funeral hymn. Can you hear her?

-Debm Kopp1ltlln

Deborah Kennedy-Nature Speaks through

December 10, January 4-March 19 at the

de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University,

500 EI Camino Real, Santa Clara

Debra Koppman is an artist and freelance

writer based in Oakland.

A conversation with sional interactive model that's part musi­cal instrument and part learning tool ofDeborah Kennedy his wonderful rendering of the web of

ith Nature Speaks at Santa Clara Univer­sity's de Saisset

Museum, installation artist and sculptor Deborah Kennedy recaptures her child­hood love of nature. Growing up in rural Connecticut, she had "free rein of acres and acres of forest, ponds, barns and fields." Finally able to respond to a pro­found sense of wrongness in the contem­porary Western lifestyle, she has found her voice as an important environmental artist. Her earlier installations addressed prison issues and censorship, but she took up environmental themes in 1997 with her public sculpture, EcoTech, at the Champion Light Rail Station in San Jose. Kennedy has exhibited locally and abroad since 1988. She received her MFA from San Jose State University in 1987.

Artweek You describe you1-selfas a con­ceptual artist. What is the main c01lcept of your ature Speaks exhibiti01l? Deborah Kennedy When I start a show, I begin with questions. The ques­tions that underlie this exhibition are: Can we create a new vision of our rela- . tionship with nature? Can we begin to understand the complexities of the web of life? Each installation in the show has its own driving question that I researched. The image and the structure of the show evolved from that. AW What is the question behind the instal­/ati01l Project Nexus? DK Many current theorists like Fri~of

Capra believe we must integrate holistic thinking into our science and our social design to begin to solve 0u! environmen­tal problems. The question behind Project Nexus is, "How can I make this way of thinking con­crete, accessi­

life. Our science and our way of thinking

in the West tend to emphasize looking at issues in isolation. The way we think is one of our primary environmental prob­lems. A good example of this is the MTBE problem. Throughout California, the gasoline industry added this chemical to gasoline to reduce air pollution, but this has created widespread contamina­tion of our aquifers. We're not very good at seeing the complex links and bonds that exist in nature. This piece is about trying to see those relationships. AW You quote Einstein in the lobby ofthe de Saisset-"No problem can be solved by the consciousness thot C1'eated it. " DK When I read that quotation, it went through me like a shock; it made everything click together, explaining why things are not working. We keep trying to solve our environmental problems using the same ways of thinking that cre­ated those problems. We need to embrace systems thinking (thinking holistically) as a way to start really solv­ing our problems. When companies start applying this type of thinking to com­pletely redesign their products and man­ufacturing, some profound transforma­tions can take place. I find this a tremen­dously hopeful vision.

I call this installation a project because it's my ongoing project to try and communicate this way of thinking. AW Did you apply systems theory to the way you developed this exhibition? DK Yes. I started to look at the univer­sity as a system and how I could impact it. It was important for me to try and reach out of the white box of the muse­um. I contacted one of the think tanks on campus, The Center for Science, Technology and Society. Through that center, I was able to contact a number of people who were interested in environ­mental themes. I became acquainted with Amy Shachter, the head of the environ­

ble and allur­ Deborah Kennedy, with her Ring of Life, from Project Nexus, in Nature Speaks,

ing?" The at the de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University. (Photo: James Dewrance.)

centerpiece of this installa­tion is what I call the Ring ofLife· It's based on a botanical illustration developed by WD. Billings, a botany pro­fessor at Duke. This part of the show is dedi­cated to him. I created a three-dimen­

mental studies program, who funded me to teach a class called Environmental An: Theory and Practice. I wanted to worL:: with the students because they're the next generation. I djd a collaborative projea with the students during that c13ss which will also be exhibited al the de Saisset. It's ""lied Closing Iht Loop. They focused on the use of paper on campus. The idea is that if you recycle your finite resources, you can use them infinitely. \Ve created a thineen-fool-long infinity symbol that's covered ",rith paper from the recycling bins al the librar),. We dyed the papcr blue so it's like the river of paper flowing through the campus. I also worked with students Linus Lau, Sam Plut2 and Bob Griffin on sound components in the piece. AW What is tht idra brhind Earth,.vise? OK EorthWlIt is a response to my feeling that wc've lost a sense of belonging CO nature. You first see a small grove of trees and below them, scattered boulders. As you get closer, you realize the boulders are acmally heads. I'm siting our intellect within an image of the nat­ural realm. I'm suggesting that per­haps we can learn to look at nature in a new way. Can we look at nature as our mentor? Can we start listening to nature and hearing her lessons? This wouJd h3ve really powerful implications for the way that we live. AW Ytmr third inS111I/Ption is titled The Death of Birth. What is tht Ihm" ofthis w.,-/t? OK Few people today seem fully aware th3t we humans are creating an unprecedented and accelerating wave of extinctions. An estimated seventy species become extinct each day, approxi­mately three per hour. In this piece I'm going to h3ve a large piece of fabric, about twenty-by-thiny feet. Each day during the exhibition, we're going to make seventy cuts in the fabric, repre­senting the tapcsay of Ufe, while the cuts represenl the shredding of this fabric. The tide is a quot2tion from 3 scientist who said that death is one thing, but the end of birth is something else. AW What art ,urnt oftht chaUmgts of ,..,-king ((JtI(tptually? OK The fi"t challenge is not knowing what to mak.e until I have my questions and I've done my research. The art arises out of that process. The other difficulty is, I'm always a beginner. For this current project, I wanted to make a three-dimen­sional model of Billings's illustration. It was a leap from that idea to bringing it into reality. First I created a five-foot wooden ring. Then I needed to create lines crisscrossing this ring. So we went through a nwnber of scenarios, but we realized we needed some sort of tension­ing device. I received some technical advice from a man who moved me toward using piano technology. Well, that scenario meant that the wires were

going to be under considerable tension because the steel piano wires generate quite intense forces when you tighten them. J had to keep going forward. RiJke says that when you're creating something you have to have faith, you have to step out into the void and have fiaith that a stair step will fonn under your foot. I can't tell you the number of times I woke up at three o'clock in the morning won­dering whether thjs whole process was going to work., but it has.

-Patricia B. Sandtn

Patricia B. Sanders is a freelance writer based In the Bay Area.

Harley, The Collector, 1985, acylic on canvas, 77" x 67", d St. Louis Series, at SoFa 2 Gallery, Santa Rosa

Harley at SoFo 2 Gallery

ttl ospectives are Uke Christmas din­ne" for people with many chil­dren, except they invite only the ones they like. But even under such circum­

stances, when an artist of immense talent whose work has not been locally seen is afforded one, we celebrate. When that anist paints for almost fony yem, prodi­gious numbers of work, large in scale, we're curious. Add an artist who fearless­ly examines every facet of an intelJea insatiable, urbane, and scalpel sharp, we pay attention. Harlty: In Iht Shaduw of Tlmt is that exhibition. The good news is that his work is being shown. The not so good news is that the SoFa 2 Gallery in Santa Rosa is the venue: a space too small for the task. It's like telling Hercules he'll be hosing off the driveway instead of cleaning the stables of Augeas. One hopes this work sees. and soon, the inte­rior confines of a larger, more prominent gallery or museum.