Artist Mary Babcock in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park

ARTIST MARY BABCOCK IN HAWAI’I VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK

Multi-Media Visual and Performing Artist Mary Babcock is the featured guest on this episode of Big Blend Radio’s “Toast To The Arts & Parks” Show. Hear about her art, meditative art walks in nature, and current experience of being the Late Summer 2022 National Parks Arts Foundation artist-in-residence in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. Listen here in the YouTube player or download the podcast on Spreaker, PodBean, SoundCloud, or Facebook.

ARTIST STATEMENT:

“My work explores “mending” and its implications for cultural change. Although I work across traditionally defined media and conceptual boundaries, the grounding point for my work is in the metaphors derived from fiber processes (e.g. stitching, binding, weaving, piecing) and the ways in which precise application of fiber metaphors may heighten our understanding of both peacebuilding and of fractures in the foundations for socio-ecological justice. Tattering may be inherent. It is part of the wear and tear – some necessary, some not so necessary. Yet we seem to fall short on the art of mending.

Most recently, my work examines the spiritual, psychological, socio-ecological issues surrounding climate change. Living in Oceania, I think about myself – all of us – as water, with our shared resiliencies and vulnerabilities. I explore notions of preservation and dissolution and question the ways in which we import and impose terrocentric and static understanding of boundaries on cultures and ecosystems more naturally accustomed to fluidity. I seek materials that enable me to probe complexity: abandoned fishing nets and lines gathered across the Pacific, my body (via performance), and household wax paper (designed to protect, yet fragile and ephemeral). My work is best informed through immersion and embodiment – through experiencing and absorbing directly the entangled energies of a space and sifting that knowledge through my hands. My goal is to gain a greater understanding of empathy and compassion, as well as of our proclivity towards destruction: our enduring entanglement.”

Learn more about Mary’s work at https://www.marybabcock.com/

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