When I joined the project team for the Art & Nature Park nearly five years ago, the IMA’s journey of park development was well underway.  The process would eventually span a decade or more, culminating in the grand opening of 100 Acres in June 2010.  Now, the recent announcement of the Ruth Lilly Visitors Pavilion as a 2012 National AIA honor award winner has provided the final underscore for the initial launch of 100 Acres, as well as a new standard for the park as it moves into the future as a space in constant evolution.

Although the park as a whole was a wide ranging, multi-faceted project, the Ruth Lilly Visitors Pavilion always served as the nucleus for the entire endeavor, and in my mind the benchmark of success or failure for the park overall.  The constant challenge throughout the development of the park was to implement eight unique, autonomous commissioned artwork installations and a network of landscape and infrastructure improvements, yet weave them together into a coherent, holistic visitor experience.  It became apparent early in the process that the Visitors Pavilion was to be the center point, around which the rest of the park would live in context.  It was important that the park be a place for multi-faceted experiences, a place which celebrates the gray areas between man and nature, between art and architecture, between carefully programmed experiences and organic, meditative spaces.  The role of the Visitors Pavilion was at the same time clear and elusive: to serve as the flagship space where these gray areas could be called out.

The first set of development drawings I saw in 2007 showed the essence of the final product, but in a much different incarnation.  Marlon Blackwell Architects had been working hand-in-hand for years with landscape architect Ed Blake, artist Mary Miss, and the IMA project team to develop the comprehensive architectural plan for the park, and a structure known as the Interpretive Pavilion was the architectural workhorse of that plan.  It was to serve practical needs such as shelter, restrooms, and a hub for communications.  It was also to serve as the programming hub for the park, providing a home for educational initiatives, events, and temporary exhibitions.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Art and Nature Park

This summer, the IMA hosted a group of educators for a special teacher workshop inspired by our newest addition to the artwork in 100 Acres, FLOW (Can You See the River?), a project by New York based artist Mary Miss. Our goal for the workshop was to help teachers think about ways to incorporate the project into their classes, with the aim of engaging students in conversations about environmental, social, and economic sustainability while increasing student’s awareness of the White River and its watershed. Being an “art person,” I realized that to engage with this project and truly see the river as Mary instructs, I would need to supplement my arty knowledge with a little bit of science and history. And when you are trying to learn something, I have discovered that the best way to do so is to be locked up with a room full of teachers. So what did I learn? Here are a few highlights:

• Our friends at the Cell Motion BioBus, a 1974 San Francisco transit bus converted into a mobile science laboratory, showed us an awesome little creature called Daphnia,which is found in a range of aquatic (including the White River) environments and are visible to the naked eye (granted, they are still very small). Daphnia are tiny crustaceans with translucent exoskeletons, making them really interesting to view under microscopy.
• The partnership between the IMA and USGS, that has been a crucial part of  Mary Miss’s project, began several years ago when the IMA commissioned artist Maya Lin to create a piece for our collection. Lin was interested in mapping the bottom of a Lost River in Bedford, IN. Lost Rivers get their name from the fact that they flow underground. The USGS helped to map the river bottom and the cavernous ceiling. To learn more about Lin’s piece, appropriately titled Above and Below, check out this Art Babble video.
• There are a ton of similarities between the IMA and the Marian University Eco Lab. Both places benefited from wealthy individuals with ties to Indianapolis industry that also had country estates located along the White River. James Allison’s house (of Allison Transmission and co-founder of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway) and the surrounding land were donated to Marian University and became the northern part of the campus, while the IMA’s Oldfields, the home of J.K. Lilly Jr. (of Eli Lily and Company and Eagle Creek Park) was donated to the Art Association of Indianapolis (later becoming the Indianapolis Museum of Art). Behind each of the country estates was a patch of land that was used for various purposes. The land behind Allison’s home was once used as cattle pasture and a driving course (check out the picture below), eventually becoming a 55 acre nature preserve for the university known as the Marian University EcoLab. The backyard of the Lilly family was also used for many things, such as farmland, a stone quarry (helping to build nearby Interstate 65), and now as 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art and Nature Park.

A great Aha! moment from this workshop was my realization of the genius of Mary Miss’s project title: FLOW (Can You See the River?). She is asking us to literally look at the river, but also to see the many ways in which it affects our lives. The teachers that attended the workshop helped me see the power of the word “flow.” Sure it refers to the movement of water,  but we also use it to describe the circulation of blood in the body or the way traffic moves (or doesn’t) during rush hour. To me it implies a Zen-like interconnectedness in the ways in which we share biological features with a creature like Daphnia or a shared history like that of EcoLab and 100 Acres.

Miss’s project opens September 22nd, which means you’ve got a little time to do some research to find out how you are connected to the river. So c’mon, learn something about the river. I dare you.

Filed under: Art, Art and Nature Park, Local, Public Programs

Andrea Zittel’s Indianapolis Island is now occupied by artist Katherine Ball. For the second residency on this habitable living structure within the IMA’s 100 Acres, she will attempt to improve the water quality of the 35-acre lake through her project, No Swimming.

During her time in Indianapolis, Katherine will investigate the sources of water flowing into the park’s lake and seek to understand how these inflows affect the quality of the lake’s water. She is bicycling along the edge of the White River in order to become familiarized with this body of water, which borders and often flows into the 100 Acres lake. She began the first leg of her journey on August 9 at the north fork of the river, and will live on Indianapolis Island from August 12 until September 25. After her residency, Ball will resume her trek, which will conclude at the intersection of the White and Wabash rivers.

 Follow the project with Katherine – and learn how you can become involved – through her blog, which she regularly updates here.

Filed under: Art, Art and Nature Park

The past few weeks in the Objects & Variable Art Laboratory, I’ve been working with a lot of staff to get Andrea Zittel’s Indianapolis Island ready for its next annual summer resident, Katherine Ball.

Nicole Peters in the process of cleaning the front deck on "Indianapolis Island."

 Zittel’s Indianapolis Island is an artwork that presents many challenges and complexities that arise when conserving contemporary outdoor artworks.  For starters, the location is tricky as it is situated in the middle of the 100 Acres Lake and is only accessible via boat.  Secondly, biological effects on the island are difficult to accurately assess from the shore’s distance.  When I say “biological effects” I mean those of a Great Blue Heron taking up its own kind of residency.

Indiana Blue Heron

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the artwork requires a human to activate it by taking up an annual summer residency, which is a fundamental principle of the artwork itself.  The combination of these factors encouraged both problem solving and some creative thinking when devising a treatment plan for this interesting contemporary work.

After our initial assessment, it was obvious that a few things needed to be addressed before Katherine moved in.  The first issue being the bird guano left behind by the Great Blue Heron.  This was indeed a two person treatment which required at least one of the two people to be exceptionally tall (cue Richard, who is rather tall).

The biological effects of the Blue Heron resident on top of the island.

So, literally on the hottest morning of the summer, Richard and I rowed out to the island to scrub and wash Indianapolis Island.  We used an Orvus WA Paste-H2O solution as our cleaning agent, nitrile-dishwashing gloves, sponges, and nylon brushes for the treatment. We performed this cleaning from the island’s deck area, as well as from the rowboat.

Objects & Variable Art Conservator, Richard McCoy, utilizing his height for the cleaning process of "Indianapolis Island."

There were two fisherman on the shore who we chatted with before heading out and I believe they may having been taking bets as to when our rowboat would capsize, dumping Richard and I into the lake during the rowboat treatment.  Luckily, this did not happen and our boat remained afloat for the duration of our island visit.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Art and Nature Park, Conservation

Nicole Peters, IMA Scholar Objects & Variable Art Summer Intern, on a Boat.

Prior to starting my summer internship, when I was putting the finishing touches on my Masters in Art History at West Virginia University, I had been daydreaming about working on the 18th-century European porcelain and ancient Chinese bronzes located in the IMA’s collection.  During my first phone conversation with Richard McCoy back in April, I soon found out that my internship would not include what I had been working on at WVU, but instead I would be charged with researching, documenting, and conserving the eight site-specific contemporary installations within 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park. My initial reaction was, “Well, this sounds pretty interesting…and besides, there’s probably some bronzes and marble sculptures in there somewhere, right?”

Fast-forward to today, six weeks along in my internship, and I am learning more about various formats of fiberglass, powder-coating, galvanized steel, and industrial paint systems than I ever thought I would.  But more importantly, my internship here has been encouraging me to fully consider and understand contemporary art materials, contemporary installation processes, and the importance of site maintenance and regular inspection.  As I engulf myself in this project, I am becoming familiar with various conservation terminology and procedures, and the instruments involved in the technical study of artworks.

One of my current projects at 100 Acres involves recording and monitoring the level of color and gloss on Jeppe Hein’s Bench Around the Lake, Los Carpinteros’ Free Basket steel arches, and Atelier Van Lieshout’s fiberglass installation, Funky Bones.

Nicole Peters Making Colorimetric Measurements on “Funky Bones.”

With the help of two useful instruments, the Micro-TRI-gloss Glossmeter and the Spectrophotometer CM- 700d/600d, and one very knowledgeable conservation scientist at the IMA, Greg D. Smith, we have been able to begin detailed research projects on important IMA artworks. Using these instruments requires both manual and technical competency, but more importantly, the information recorded must be understood and interpreted in a way that it is not only accessible to conservators, but also curators, registrars, and even the artists themselves. Thus far, color and gloss measurements have been recorded for the steel and plastic components of Free Basket and the black and white fiberglass sections of Funky Bones. Measurements for the fifteen individual bench installations for Bench Around the Lake are currently in progress.

The colorimeter instrument is able to digitally plot a precise numerical coordinate that corresponds with an exact color located on the CIE L*a*b* color charting system.  When colors are digitized, it becomes possible to express minute differences in what is essentially the same color.  These are called color differentials (i.e. Δ L*, Δ a*, and Δ b*). The CIE L*a*b* system evaluates hue (color), value (lightness or darkness), and chroma (saturation).

Plot of Red and Blue Paint Used on “Free Basket.”

For example, the color for the red and blue arches of Free Basket was measured and plotted in the above image.  This measurement is to be taken annually and the sample location should be taken in the same area each time.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Art, Art and Nature Park, Conservation, IMA Staff