Making Ideas Visual

People often ask me: “What is the thought process behind your artwork?” It’s a process that starts with a concept related to something I’ve read in a book or heard about in the news. After learning more about the concept, I develop a story to illustrate it.

To tell the story, I look for images based on nature, especially plants and birds. They can both be rendered well in yarn and knitting. Plus they make appealing subjects in their own right, regardless of the concept I am illustrating.

This sounds easy, but if I do it right, it’s not. “Provocative art challenges not only the viewer, but also its maker,” write David Bayles and Ted Orland in Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking.

For the democracy series, I selected several concepts that I wanted to discuss. They include the effects of election campaign money, restrictions on access to the polls, voter eligibility, and gerrymandering.

I gather information about the topic, thinking about the core of the subject and the reasons it is important. I chose to make a sculpture about gerrymandering because gerrymandered election districts unfairly exaggerate the power of one group of voters over another.

In June 2019, the Supreme Court decided a gerrymandering case called Rucho v. Common Cause. It involved districts drawn by the Maryland Legislature to favor Democrats and districts drawn by the North Carolina legislature to favor Republicans. In North Carolina, the district lines were drawn in such a way that while 50% of the votes in the state went to Republican candidates, the Republicans won 9 out of 12 congressional districts.

While gerrymandering has been attempted for decades, the use of computer analysis of voter data and maps has given powerful new tools to those who wish to manipulate district maps. The Court ruled in Rucho that it will not step in to correct these maps. The Court has now ruled that it will allow state legislators to draw district boundaries to favor one political party.

To illustrate the concept of gerrymandering, I looked for a story that would show how district line-drawing could create such unfair distortions.

The story needed two types of voters: one type would be few in number but end up victorious through the way the district lines were drawn. The other would be greater in number and end up in a weak and vulnerable position. I also needed something visual to represent the district boundary lines.

The word gerrymander comes from the shape of a district drawn by Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry in 1812 to limit the power of the Federalists. Playing off this mash-up term, I started with salamanders. If I juxtaposed these little amphibians against a bird predator, I’d have the two types of voters.

I was aware that some types of salamanders are endangered in Vermont where I live. Their greatest threat is getting run over by a car on the road when they try to reach the pools of water where they breed. Local nature organizations organize teams of volunteers to come out on the first warm nights in the spring to help salamanders cross the road.

I did some research to determine which birds eat salamanders, or at least eat amphibians. I found the green heron is one. This would be a fun bird to sculpt, since it has green, black, and rufous colored feathers. Its size in comparison to salamanders is good: about 18” compared with five to nine inches. That should make for nice proportions in a sculpture.

So, my idea began to take the shape of several green herons standing among a larger number of salamanders. The salamanders will be grouped and divided by roads in a way that puts a small number of herons in control of more groups than their numbers would seem to allow.

With these visual images of green herons and salamanders assembled in my head, I move forward to making the artwork. The making continues the conversation between the idea and the visual image that began when I started illustrating the concept through characters from nature.

The big decisions I face at the start are the size and overall composition. Once those are in place, I can proceed to the details of the shapes, materials, colors, and texture. At the time of this writing, this piece is at the cusp of the making stage. I am considering making a moderately large sculpture with each bird roughly two feet high. They will be perched on stands towering over the salamanders, which will be spread out on the floor, scrambling to get across roads to reach the vernal pools.

The roads will cut through their habitat creating unnatural separations that divide the salamanders into districts controlled by a small number of herons.  The districts will be gerrymandered along animal lines.

Update: see how the piece is developing and read about the materials I used in two of the herons here.