Gwen Arkin with Olin Erikson – head gardener with The Merwin Conservancy. Both of eager to explore the combination of the organic matter in seeds, fruits and flowers (the natural source) with the organic matter in photographic emulsions (a chemical source).
Denby Freeland-Cole with Anna Dodd and her family at Ola Mau Farms. Exploring the varieties of taro they have been growing deepening her awareness of taro and expanding her knowledge of dyes from Hawaiian plants.
Terry Lopez with Judy Bisgard and physicist Dr. Garret Lisi. The challenge for us was to create an art piece that juxtaposes the organic world with the mathematical one.
Karuna Santoro with Rich von Wellsheim from Whispering Winds Bamboo in Kipahulu. This piece represents the many connections we all have with people and things around us, the threads that bind and hold us together.
About this video
Four collaborations pairing artists with growers and a scientist. Photographic artist Gwen Arkin worked with the palm collection manager of the Merwin Conservancy — the poet W. S. Merwin’s 40-year palm forest in Ha’ikū, among the world’s largest private palm collections — gathering seeds and plant matter from the garden to make lumen prints: camera-less images formed by the chemistry of plants reacting with aged silver-gelatin paper in sunlight, finished in wax. Denby Freeland-Cole collaborated with a family growing dozens of heirloom kalo varieties, making kapa dyed with taro-derived colors — one piece depicting the Hawaiian moon calendar, honoring the family’s practice of planting by the full moon.
Terry Lopez read about physicist Garrett Lisi — whose “E8 theory of everything” work is done partly on Maui — and boldly wrote to ask if his geometric drawings could enter a painting; with Judy Bisgard she built two encaustic panels, the artists trading them back and forth, each simplifying the other’s density until “history showed through.” And Karuna Santoro worked with a Kipahulu bamboo grower, marrying cross-cut black bamboo with her glass rounds in a circular piece called “Connections.”
