What if there are no more of them?
Art American artist's exhibit spotlights endangered species
ST. ANDREWS - New York artist Katie Seiden, who says she tries to be a social conscience when she creates art, has spotlighted endangered species in an exhibit of her work now showing in St. Andrews.
"I feel artists can and do have a responsibility," said Seiden.
"I have done water colours and I can do that but I think art has to have meaning. "¦ I think it is important to do something with your art that isn't easy."
Seiden, a sculptor from Sea Cliff, N.Y., has had more than 20 solo exhibits, more than 100 group shows and has had her work shown in three countries and more than 18 U.S. states.
She opened her show Endangered Species Series at the Sunbury Shores Art and Nature Centre Wednesday evening.
In the centre of the room where her sculptures were displayed, animals made of wires, scraps and stones stood on pedestals as people gathered around, looking closely and making comments to the artist.
Seiden said the sculptures are modeled after endangered species including a woodland caribou, Arctic polar bear, Canada lynx and the North Atlantic right whale that summers in the Bay of Fundy each year. Seiden, who has spent summers on Grand Manan, said she found many of the materials needed to make her art on the beaches of the island.
"I want children and young people to think about our animals and think about what would happen if there were no more of them," she said.
"It's really quite a tragedy."
Jay Remer, president of the Sunbury Shores board of directors, said he saw Seiden's exhibit a year ago on Grand Manan and realized it would be a perfect fit for Sunbury Shores.
"It was a very popular show," said Remer.
"Everyone wanted to touch it and that shows how successful it was. People would say, 'Oh, that looks so much like a penguin or that doesn't really look like a cougar.' I always think it is nice when the art evokes a response and this did."
Remer said the exhibit will be displayed in St. Andrews until Aug. 24.
Seiden said she started the series of sculptures on endangered species a number of years ago when she was summering on Grand Manan and was collecting wires that washed up on the beach. Her first sculpture was a spotted owl and her last was the right whale that was commissioned by Sunbury Shores.
"We started travelling in Nova Scotia and when we went to Grand Manan, we loved it and the people and how romantic it is; you can watch the whales and the puffins," said Seiden.
"You have to go very far from where we are to find an unspoiled area "¦ we keep going back to Grand Manan because it is quite unspoiled."
Seiden does a collection of pieces called the Recall Series that is based on sensational crimes that make front page headlines in newspapers and magazines.
The series includes a sculpture of two deflated footballs wrapped in bloody gloves and set in marble, called O.J. Simpson Recalls Nicole and Ron, and a sculpture of a fast-food tray with Wendy's restaurant wrappers and cups filled with bullet shells, called John Taylor and Craig Godineaux Recall the Wendy's Massacre.
"I don't want people to forget the perpetrators and the people who are victims," said Seiden. "It is not traditional, but it is necessary."
She said after working on her crime series for so long, she enjoyed working on the endangered animals that are more easily received and not as controversial.
"I had been working on people who had been murdered and they couldn't be saved. They were more than endangered," said Seiden. "This is very hard, depressing work to work on. Here, there is an element that says I hope these animals can be saved and I hope my work can contribute."
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