Hannah O'Hare Bennett

The word artifact has two definitions. One is “an object made by a human being, typically an item of cultural or historical interest,” and the second is “something observed in a scientific investigation or experiment that is not naturally present but occurs as a result of the preparative or investigative procedure.” Both definitions apply to the work shown in this exhibition. The objects you see are products of my investigations and experimentations with materials, in particular paper pulp. I have been relentless in trying new ways of using it--pushing it into plaster molds, shaping it with my hands, impregnating it with pigments, iron filings, and saw dust. It is like clay in that it is malleable, but unlike clay, it shrinks and warps as it dries. It can be restrained, but in that case, if it is a thick layer, it will often tear. Holes made intentionally and strategically will help prevent that. In the gallery, you will find artifacts from our domestic lives that may be returning to the wild: thorn-toothed combs, pins like plumed seeds in an embroidered storage case, grids that have warped and gone feral. Look once, and then look again, closer. 

This work is a poetic response to my preoccupation with what it means to be human and to interact with the natural world. In evolutionary biology, there is the concept of the domestication syndrome, the group of traits that wild plants and animals develop over long periods of time as they interact with humans and become tame. Think, for instance, of the difference between a wolf and a dachshund. Domesticated plants tend to have larger seeds with thinner seedcoats, diminished defense mechanisms like bitter-tasting compounds and thorns, indehiscent seed pods, and synchronized germination, all qualities that distinguish them from their wild relatives. Early agriculturalists selected plants that were easy to harvest and pleasant to eat, but part of that bargain meant that the plants were incapable of surviving without the protection and continued propagation humans provided. In turn, human societies have become ever more dependent on domesticated plants and animals. We are bound together in a balance that may be more delicate than we know.

The images in this Gallery are from a show in the Gelsey Verna Gallery in the Art Lofts Building on the University of Wisconsin Campus, Dec 13-19, 2016.

Domestic Origins

“…that’s what I live with, you know, these tangible small objects. I felt since I was a very small child that little inanimate things were very wise, that they had there was own kind of wisdom, something to teach me if I would pay the right kind of attention to them.”—Naomi Shihab Nye, in an interview with Bill Moyers in 1995

I am preoccupied by the way objects, ideas and stories begin, and the way that they change, especially under human influence.

For instance:

A hand is a kind of comb, in fact, it is the first comb, run through hair, or used to order threads while weaving.  What happens when you translate a comb into a soft form, and bend it?  What can it become? 

A shadow, drawn and sculpted becomes a wave or a landform. 

A bowl is a hill.

I’m not going to tell you every last part of the story.

Pollen was a solo show in the Art Lofts Gallery on the University of Wisconsin Madison Campus, August 6-12, 2016.

Artist Statement

It began with the cattails.  The grow abundantly in the marshy area near the lake, where I ride my bike almost every day.  In May I noticed the way the dead plants from last year wove together, almost like a mat or a basket. Then new green growth speared through the brown, and eventually, one day, I saw a green carrail emerging.  I dropped my bike and waded in to investigate and grabbed the carrel.  It released a cloud of pollen, which coated my hand.  I brushed it off on my jeans and then the pollen was there, too.

I kept watchin the cattails.  They changed and now are a soft furry brown in long, shiny green leaves and stalks.  When it freezes, they will fade to grayish and begin to shed.

I am thinking of ideas as a kind of pollen.  You take one thing, some small thing that appeals to you for some reason--a rusty grate, for instance.  And you think about ways you can change it, ways that you could make it important and noticeable.  And maybe there's some other thing that you see one day, like a pin cushion with an assortment of pins in it.  Is there a way to blend them?  

What is heare are the ways I found to blend and change ideas and materials.

Someone else would find a different way.