The Lansing Art Gallery and Education Center’s annual ArtPath exhibition allows Michigan artists to use the setting of the Lansing River Trail for their murals, sculptures and installations.
But some artists take it a step further by making the trail a part of their piece including one that’s been literally woven into the path.
Woven Wonder almost overtakes a part of a boardwalk along the River Trail downtown, with a random explosion of colored yarn wrapped around the poles and railings amid the typical browns and greens outside. Draped and tied garlands, crocheted panels, granny squares and pompoms cover the wooden structure.
Grand Rapids-based mixed media artist Barb Lash co-created the piece.
"We have bright lime greens, magentas, purples, blues, all woven together in ways that are not intentional and become unexpected," she said.
What Sierra is like really passionate about is just infusing really intense color through fiber and especially activating kind of these natural spaces with a kind of unnatural color.
Lash credits her longtime collaborator Sierra Cole for the color scheme of the piece they made together.
"What Sierra is like really passionate about is just infusing really intense color through fiber and especially activating kind of these natural spaces with a kind of unnatural color."
Lash says the piece is not something they planned out extensively beforehand.
"We just have fun and make things, and we think about color and vibrancy and what kind of reaction we want to get," she said.
"And then there's ultimate spontaneity in installation."
She says some of the materials they’ve used come from discarded pieces on Buy Nothing groups or from families giving away their older relatives' unfinished projects.
"There's just a really cool process of like weaving together stories, people, communities, places that we can do with fiber and color and yarn."
They’ve also incorporated recycled items like Christmas ornaments and other shiny objects
"We have a bunch of CDs that we've wrapped with colorful yarn, and those add like a real reflective, and motion-activated component to it," she said. "We're saving things from the trash bin."
If you wrap a tree, you're giving that tree a hug. You're bringing back these kind of familiar, comfortable memories that make you think differently about the spaces you're in.
Lash says she wants viewers to feel a warmth when they see the piece.
"You have visceral memories of being wrapped up in a blanket, of having a favorite sweater, enjoying the beauty of a colorful Afghan or something that your grandmother made," she said.
She says in a way, they’re trying to evoke that same feeling but in nature.
"If you wrap a tree, you're giving that tree a hug. You're bringing back these kind of familiar, comfortable memories that make you think differently about the spaces you're in. "
Some viewers might be concerned with how the piece will hold up throughout the summer between the hot sun and heavy rain of the season, but Lash is ok with the fact that it won’t last.
"The project, when we set it up, in the first couple of days, it looks like perfect, right? And you think, 'Oh my God, I want to preserve this,'" she said.
"But that's not how life is. It's not static. It changes and things fade. And things fall apart, and there’s also beauty in that."
Barb Lash and Sierra Cole’s yarn and mixed media installation Woven Wonder can be found on the River Trail boardwalk south of Michigan Avenue behind the Impression 5 Science Center downtown.
The Lansing Art Gallery and Education Center is a financial supporter of WKAR.
