Where Science Meets Art

Carlin is one of three curators for Science Stories. When she and biology professor Peter Wimberger were looking to collaborate on a new interdisciplinary project in 2019, they brought in visual artist Lucia Harrison, who taught art and science at The Evergreen State College and is a founding member of the Puget Sound Book Artists organization. In January 2020, the trio organized a meet-andgreet on campus at Slater Museum of Natural History, where Wimberger is director, for local book artists and scientists to talk about their work in a “speed dating” sort of environment. After the event, people were matched up, usually in pairs—one scientist, one artist—and each pair started to collaborate on what their particular book would be. (Because of COVID-19, most of the collaborating took place via Zoom.)

One of the artists was Jessica Spring, a printer who’s lived in Tacoma for nearly 20 years, and whose letterpress shop, Springtide Press, is just down the street from campus. She paired up with Puget Sound Professor Emerita Alyce DeMarais, a developmental biologist who has long been interested in environmental issues. DeMarais has worked with Puget Sound students to understand how bisphenol chemicals from polycarbonate plastics can affect egg development in the ovaries of zebrafish. They concluded that these plastics, found in food and drink packaging, could also affect fertility in other vertebrate organisms, including humans. “Plastic has enhanced life in so many ways, but it’s caused a lot of harm, as well,” says DeMarais.

For their artist book, titled “Tensile: A Sublime Love Story,” Spring touched on society’s obsession with plastic by weaving the zebrafish research with romantic text from a 19th-century poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley. (“Tensile,” which means strong and flexible, is a nod to the longevity of plastic.) The artist also used single-use plastics to print the patterns onto the pages: She placed items like old bubble wrap, bendy straws, contact lens cases, bread bag clasps, and produce netting (think: avocado bags) into her press—even those skinny rings that we discard when opening milk containers. “Nothing printed quite as expected, and that made me like it even more,” says Spring. “These were materials that I hadn’t really thought about, but I found them really compelling.” She chose fluorescent ink for a provocative effect, while a ribbon of red paper running through the middle of the book prominently displayed the research findings of scientists, including DeMarais and her group.

Plastics pollution is a global problem, and DeMarais says that’s why Spring’s decision to use discarded plastics to design the book was so powerful: “That’s just a tiny piece of what’s out there in the environment.” The timing of the book also was interesting, notes Spring, because the use of plastics was at an all-time high during the pandemic, from restaurant takeout packaging to the plexiglass installed in stores and the workplace. “What struck me is that this plastic that we use so much to keep us sterile is literally making us sterile,” says Spring. “The irony is just so painful.”

“Tensile” tells just one story. The exhibition includes 20 additional artist books that focus on other scientific and environmental issues in the region. For example, artist Sarah Horowitz tackled the topic of climate change by hand drawing the landscape from various stops along Washington Pass. (She used stones to hold down her massive sheets of paper as she drew.) Meanwhile, Portland-based artist Shu Ju Wang conceptualized Wimberger’s studies— i.e., the beaver’s role in an ecosystem—by painting a stunning watercolor story in an accordion format. And Harrison, who is concerned about habitat loss in the Pacific Northwest, drew a series of booklets about native plants and the wildlife that depend on them.

Carlin says that there are many similarities in the ways that artists and scientists approach their work, be it creative problem-solving or a willingness to try new methods: “Art is often an experimentation—some things work, some things don’t,” she says. “Scientific research is very much like that.”

Science Stories is on exhibit until Jan. 15, 2022, at Collins Memorial Library. To see the collection online, as well as videos of the artists and the scientists, visit blogs.pugetsound.edu/sciencestories.