Calendar
Spirit and Form: Michele Oka Doner and the Natural World
January 29 – May 9, 2010
Society Preview
Wednesday, January 27
Invitation Only
Member Opening - Thursday, January 28, 6-8 pm
Like Meijer Gardens, Michele Oka Doner visualizes the unique synergy of sculpture and horticulture, the art of mankind and the art of nature entwined. Spirit and Form: Michele Oka Doner and the Natural World is the largest exhibition ever by one of today’s most versatile artists renowned for her figurative sculptures, public art projects, prints, jewelry and functional objects such as chairs and serving pieces. The exhibition is timed to coincide with the official completion of Beneath the Leafy Crown, the expansive 1,200-square-foot bronze and terrazzo floor that winds through the entire scenic corridor at Meijer Gardens.
Oka Doner has been fascinated with the fragments of nature since she was a young girl in the 1950s, collecting whatever washed up on the beach near her Miami home. She majored in art at the University of Michigan and then lived in the Detroit suburbs, where she became similarly fascinated by discoveries in the deciduous woods where she walked with her two young sons. Yet her art has always gone beyond found objects. For her most well-known public installation, A Walk At the Beach at the Miami Airport, she researched 800 forms of sea life—and imagined 1,200 more, many of which are incorporated in the 22,000-square-foot marble and bronze floor.
The Bank of America Gallery will feature eight colossal relief prints (8 × 4 feet) made from impressions of organic material—roots and branches. The Holton Gallery displays a range of carefully designed functional objects, including Terrible Chair, five large magnifiers, and sterling silver serving pieces. Oka Doner is known for sculpting functional objects, particularly chairs. “The chair taught me something I’ve never forgotten—that furniture doesn’t have to be mundane,” she has said. “It can be something that turns you into Neptune or a sea goddess when you sit on it.”
Oka Doner visualizes art that includes not just natural forms but forms that may have existed in nature, and forms suggestive of the spirit world. Oka Doner is a self-described “sorcerer’s apprentice” with an artistic goal to “materialize the ephemeral.” And the ephemeral spirit world definitely will materialize during the exhibition, with 1,500 ceramic soul catchers on display in a site-specific installation. The soul catchers were completed during Oka Doner’s residency at the famed Nymphenburg porcelain studios in Munich, Germany. The Balk Gallery will also house an enormous cast root system made of bronze which functions as a candelabra.
As a college student, her first figures were dolls tattooed with hieroglyphs. She also constructed death masks. Her figures often are headless and armless and seem as if formed from plant and animal life such as vines, roots, bark, coral and seashells. “I married Homo Sapiens to plant and animal forms and shells,” she has said. In her book, Human Nature, Oka Doner states: "I speak another language, not of the tongue but of the eye."
Michele Oka Doner Programming
Hoffman Auditorium
15-minute film on continuous loop
Watch the artist’s creative process in this film about the making of Beneath the Leafy Crown. Shot at three locations—on-site during construction, in the artist’s New York studio and in the Philadelphia foundry— the film provides a comprehensive look at this artist and her creative process.
Curator’s Choice with Joseph Becherer
Tuesday, February 2, 7 pm and Tuesday, March 2, 12 pm
Join the Chief Curator for the “inside scoop” on Spiritand Form: Michele Oka Doner and the Natural World. Walk through the exhibition and discover an artist who works in many different materials and in many different ways. Compare this approach to art- aking with other artists who focus on one style and one type of work.
Art Workshops: The Power of Nature
Saturdays, February 6, 13, 20, 1–3 pm
Grand Valley State University art education students
Discover the power of nature to inspire art. Create prints using natural materials such as sticks and sponges, contribute to a large sculpture made with found objects and design a piece of jewelry or a bookmark using items such as shells and flowers. Materials will be provided; all ages are welcome.
Sculpture Demonstration: Casting Wax into Metal
Sunday, February 7, 2 pm
Beverly Seley, Grand Valley State University
Watch artist Beverly Seley demonstrate working in wax, making molds, and the steps involved in casting wax into metal, a process Michele Oka Doner uses in her work.
Gallery Walk: Perspectives
Tuesday, February 16, 7 pm
Steve LaWarre, Mary Ashman-Dumas and Errol Shewman
Join the Director of Horticulture, Facility Attendant Manager and Guest Services Manager as they explore Spirit and Form: Michele Oka Doner and the Natural World from their own perspectives. Feel free to participate in the discussion; it is not necessary to be an art expert to find deeper meaning in art!
Panel Discussion: The Humanities Connection to Soul Catchers
Tuesday, February 23, 7 pm
Religion—Fred Stella
Anthropology—Deana Weibel, Grand Valley State University
Art—Anna Greidanus, Calvin College
Moderated by Joseph Becherer Humanities scholars discuss Michele Oka Doner’s exhibition and examine how her ideas connect people across time and place.
Lecture: Art and Function
Sunday, February 28, 2 pm
Suzanne Eberle, Kendall College of Art & Design
The seemingly wide gulf between fine art and functional art is a fairly recent development in Art History, with early Modern artists striving to advance painting over other art forms. But in the past, from ancient Egypt to the Italian Renaissance, artists created objects of both great beauty and practical utility.