What do species like the Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus have to do with art?
In Rapid City, South Dakota, a lot, actually.
Educators, students, and artists at South Dakota Mines are prepping for its Echoes of Earth: From Sea to Stone juried group exhibition. The science, engineering, and technology school is hosting a dozen artists from the region.
The coolest part: All their works are ceramic sculptures made from Fusion Shale clay formed in the Cretaceous Period in the Black Hills (read: when dinosaurs lived). The reserves are rare and limited.
Way back when, the Western Interior Seaway—a giant inland ocean—was home to dinosaurs like the Mosasaurus, Ankylosaurus, and Plesiosaurus.
“We can look at timelines and incorporate this sort of universal nature of marine life, even in places that are in the center of the continent,” says Hope Christofferson, the project curator and ceramicist from Black Hills.
“We can look at the flora and fauna that existed millions of years ago and perhaps recreate that with the actual mud that these creatures were walking around,” she says of the art in the gallery, set to open when school starts back up.
Professor Dr. Katrina Donovan and research students dug, screened, and processed the clay with a hammer mill. She says there’s a science to the art.
Creative Exploration & Outlet
“When I think about somebody walking into the gallery,” Dr. Donovan says, “I hope they can see . . . the engineering that would go into not just the processing of the clay, but the product as well.”
She says for innovation to be innovative, you need creativity. Art is that creative vehicle, she says. This project is the perfect blend.
“Sometimes I think, as STEM people, we don’t always get to see the products of what we do,” Dr. Donovan says. Here, they’re encouraged to not just problem solve, but participate hands-on.
When she and the students finished processing, they’d hand it off to Matt Whitehead, senior art lecturer. He manages the school’s gallery.
He’d portion out clay to selected artists, adding instruction on how much water to add when sculpting. At Mines, there’s no art major—but there are classes and collaborations like this. He calls the crossover “a very beautiful thing.”
“These students are in such rigorous academic fields, and school there is just really hard for some of them and in some of the programs. And I think having that arts outlet, also maybe getting knowledge that they can use later after they graduate as a sort of like a release or an escape or a type of arts therapy,” Whitehead says.
The upcoming works are contemporary expressions of biophilia—life—says Christofferson, inspired by the lives that lived long ago.
“And it really came from a time period where the Earth is so different than it is today. There were so many beautiful, giant, bizarre creatures and species walking around,” she says.
“We are living through a time period where humans are shifting and sculpting the shape of the earth itself, right? (I am) thinking about how we can potentially shape a better future or be aware of what implications our actions have as artists, as human beings.”