Eye of the Aquifer

(A Collaboration with Margaret Ross Tolbert)
Eye of the Aquifer: This project involves a collaborative effort by a visual artist and writer
to see how nature observations can be
integrated into the site
from which they are drawn.
We are interested in
how the water of springs (Juniper/Rainbow/
Peacock/other springs) can transform the artistic product-words and images
set in/on the water.
The French poet Francis Ponge said, "We have only to lower our standard
of dominating nature and
to raise our standard of participating in it
in order to make the reconciliation take place." In our project, a spring, which is constantly bubbling and sending out concentric patterns, will be a full participant in the artwork. We move beyond
site-specific work, even ritualistic work, in which the environment has remained as something
on which to make marks.
In our project, the spring will not be a backdrop for art but will come
to the foreground.
This is not like environmental art in which
an artist-made object
decays over time. We are providing elements for a product to be newly created by water. The work involves meditative trips to the springs to determine how to best realize our goal. We'e made three of fifteen anticipated on site visits. We will collaborate to create
images and text,
which will be integrated
into the environment. Transformations will be shown at the spring site.
Also we plan
to project images
on a pedestrian plaza in downtown Gainesville.
Problems which interest us
are (1) how can text and image enter
the life of the spring
in a non-intrustive way?
(2) how can refraction/ reflection/current create a new product? (3) how can we provide feedback loops
so the environment which stimulates the text and image receives the art-making overlay in a way that compounds, fractures, somehow enlarges
the effort of writer and artist
in conjunction with the flow of nature. Larger issues
we are addressing are
(1) how natural are artistic expressions; (2) does human-made text, image and art have a place in nature; and (3) what type of control can be surrendered
to allow the chosen site
to effect changes
in the creative product.
This project
is like a relay race,
in which we switch roles/
pass the baton back and forth to see which combination of approaches and ideas
leads to fusions-
new artistic products. The true project director is the collaboration and we are but apprentices to learn from it. If we give it a chance the water, otter-like, will play with the ingredients and generate galaxies of different creative products.
concentric/aqua/bubbles
Artist Statement for Margaret Ross Tolbert: Margaret has been involved in painting springs since the mid 1980's. Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Europe. Her interest in art for public places has led to commissioned large scale projects for St. Louis Union Station, Overtown Metrorail Station (Metro-Dade Art in Public Places), Hyatt Collection (Istanbul, Turkey), Mayo Clinic Research Facility (Jacksonville, Florida), University of Central Florida and University of Florida (Art in State Buildings Program). Her art is included in collections such as Florida International University, Jacksonville Art Museum and Polk County Museum. Currently she is preparing for a one-person exhibit in Sweden and a mural project in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Christy: I'm impressed by Margaret's vibrant, sensitive, intelligent approach to her art. Her works have underpinnings in nature/literature/physics in the cultures of many lands. (She speaks French and Turkish!) Her world view informs her work. I extend creative writing into visual art; Margaret, as a painter, expands into creative writing. As a colleague she is generous with her time, talent, skills and interests. Her deeply immersed renderings of springs and my meditative nature writings have dovetailed in a propitious way.

Margaret: Through an interweaving/percussion of visual placement/composition, strands of narrative, flashes of description and patterns of rhythm Christy creates a sense of form with a telling presence. The sluicing effect of the different images and rhythms creates a palpable atmosphere, a perfumed plasma that floats in the room. We are suspended outside of regular time and controlled by our expectation of the next word. Great paintings elicit this same breathless feeling of compulsion (a painting exerts an attraction that draws the viewer in) like a massive celestial planetary body, her work is substantial enough to have its own atmosphere and gravity.

Now see two of Margaret's springs paintings:
Peacock Slough and
Phantom Springs.

And honoring her interest, take a trip along
The Silk Road.

For project information
contact Christy Sheffield Sanford.
Copyright © 1995.