Artist Statement — Ingrid A. Erickson

Works in Cut Paper

Ingrid Erickson: Artist Statement

June 2024

For nearly twenty years, my art has fused art + science, research + studio practice, drawing + sculpture. From hundreds of intimately-scaled cut paper objects – based on observation and research, and created using an X-acto knife and scissors – I create large-scale installations that highlight the fragility of ecosystems. I am a mourner and documenter of lost and declining species; a taxonomist, a researcher, and a cataloger of environmental concerns. I believe that art can be a catalyst for change at both individual and societal levels.

I frequently collaborate with scientists. As part of a team at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, I helped to raise endangered whooping crane chicks. I work from life as well as from natural history collections utilizing specimens, radiographs and my own photographs and videos, sketches and drawing. Community partners for my research have included the natural history collections at The Field Museum, Chicago; North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh; the Carolina Raptor Center, Duke University; and the International Crane Foundation, Baraboo, Wisconsin.

International artist residencies at Nes in Skagastrond, Iceland and Fiskars AIR in Rasepoori, Finland have offered me extended time to practice slow looking, sketching, photography, writing and research. Residencies in the United States have included Jentel (Wyoming), Sitka Center for Art & Ecology (Oregon), Surel’s Place (Idaho), and Penland School of Crafts.

Based now in North Carolina, I was raised in New England, and have lived in the Western United States, as well in China and Thailand. I hold studio art and art history degrees from Middlebury College. I earned a K-12 Studio Art Certification from Maine College of Art, Portland.

Ingrid Erickson: Artist Statement

naturalist- nat.u.ral.ist- (noun) an expert or student of natural history

Each project involves extensive research. I work from life whenever possible, as well as from natural history collections and specimens, radiographs, and my own photographs and video taken on-site. Recent partner organizations include The Field Museum, Chicago, NC State Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, The Carolina Raptor Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Laurel, MD, (where I helped to raise endangered whooping crane chicks), and the International Crane Foundation, Baraboo, Wisconsin.

The Pollinator Project: Artist Statement

Ingrid Erickson

February 2021.

In August 2020, when I set myself the task of making 1,000 hand-cut paper pollinators, this felt like a good number to reflect the impressive species diversity of this fascinating part of the entomological world.

For this series I used #2 insect pins, hand-cut and folded paper, over 30 Riker Mount boxes, 2 insect display drawers, and a variety of jars and specimen vials. You will find rhinoceros beetles (pollinators of water lilies), net-winged beetles, pollen beetles, tumbling flower beetles, flower flies, bees, bee flies, and a wide array of moths and butterflies. Some featured species have a very direct role as pollinators (for example bees, butterflies, and certain moths) while others are indirect/accidental pollinators such as some species of ants and beetles. I have included both in this project.

I developed my own classification system based on a combination of scientific and aesthetic factors. “Specimens” are largely grouped as you might find them in an entomology collection, with a few exceptions. In this way, they resemble a collection assembled by one individual over time. This new body of work dovetails with other collections in my MUSEUM series--in which I am recreating an imagined natural history collection.

My work always involves extensive collections–based research and often includes collaboration with scientists and science museums. Fortunately, I had already logged in a substantial number of research hours before the pandemic hit. When I was an artist in residence at Surel’s Place in Boise, Idaho (in the autumn pre-pandemic) I did research at the College of Idaho’s Orma J. Smith Museum of Natural History. I took extensive notes, created an archive of my own photographs and on-site sketches and interviewed the museum’s wonderful entomology department. I also visited and documented the extensive collection of one of the museum’s retired volunteer entomologists.

A second significant experience for me in formulating this project took place at the Sitka Center in Oregon where I had my last pre-pandemic residency. While there, I assisted the center’s ecology manager in enriching habitat for the threatened Oregon Silverspot Butterfly. For me this experience highlighted the extreme fragility of many pollinators. This species, like many endangered species, requires a very specific habitat. It has a special relationship with just one critical host plant, the Early Blue Violet (a host plant for the larva). Adult butterflies also have a limited diet, requiring the nectar of just a few species (including Pearly Everlasting.)

The realization that so many species of pollinators are at risk, and how much we rely on many of them (for example, for our food production and healthy ecosystems) was a big part of the impetus for this project.

AT HOME Exhibition Artist Statement: MUSEUM Series

Ingrid Erickson

September, 2020.

The past six months have brought significant changes to my work and practice after returning to North Carolina on March 3rd from a residency at The Sitka Center for Art & Ecology in Oregon. Instead of a planned month-long residency and show in Finland, I began an intensive period of working at home. This body of work is the result of my self-styled AT HOME Residency.

My MUSEUM series features a new body of 3-dimensional hand-cut paper sculptures, over 40 of which are on view in this exhibition. In this series I have created “specimens” for an imagined Natural History collection. Works range in size from half an inch to over 6 feet. I used fishing line to suspend certain pieces and help them hold their shape.

Museum collections of all kinds still have the power to awe me.

My first memory of natural history museum “research” is an early one. I was probably around 7 years old and sketched for hours at Amherst College’s Pratt Museum. I was fascinated by the enormous skeletons of ice age mammoths and other megafauna, and intrigued by geodes, micas, ammonites, and fossilized fishes…

I have enjoyed figuring out how to make some pieces sectional or folding for more compact storage and transportation. There is more to this series in the works… though I have put my whale, narwhal, and largest land mammal sculpture development on hold temporarily due to the space constraints of working at home. Sometimes constraints can inspire new ideas and ways of working. This has been the case for me.

Although I have recently participated in several outdoor public art projects, I have never before installed a show outside…

A few notes on working outdoors:

Using the outdoors as an exhibition space is both exciting and challenging, especially with a medium like paper. Paper is a very responsive material—humidity, heat, wind, and the elements, not to mention insects and other organisms, have the potential to alter it in just a short time. It bends, changes shape, lengthens, and contracts when exposed to changes in the environment (even in a climate controlled gallery setting.) I use a heavy-weight paper that has a natural ability to hold its shape for this reason.

Documenting and preparing work for this exhibition was made interesting by a series of recurrent afternoon thunderstorms, flash flood watches, and water-saturated ground over a period of several summer weeks. I ended up paying close attention to the changes in the natural environment--registering small changes in light and wind. I think that a sensitivity to place and time actually helped in deciding how best to install and document particular pieces. This process unfolded over the course of several weeks, rather than the intense hours of a typical install.

Researched in pre-pandemic times (in Iceland and the US) at the College of Idaho Natural History Museum, the NC State Museum of Natural Sciences, and in two private collections, there is a certain irony in the fact that my Museum series will make its first appearance outdoors; though this is perhaps actually quite appropriate for an imagined natural history collection such as this one.

An Ecological Portrait of Hog Island Artist Statement:

Ingrid Erickson

My residency on Hog Island took place August 5-17, 2018. I began my 2 weeks on this 330-acre island off the Maine coast by being brought by boat (with my gear, art supplies, and 10 plus gallons of water, cooler and ice packs) to my cabin. Built c. 1919, the cabin has no electricity or running water and is situated on the 5 miles of hiking trails that ring the coast. I hiked them all with my sketchbook, and took lots of notes and photographs to work from later.

Since my residency, I have produced a large-scale hand-cut paper installation titled An Ecological Portrait of Hog Island, featuring the species I observed and researched during my residency. It is nearly 30 feet long in its current iteration, with individual cut paper barnacles, for example, measuring less than a quarter inch; and a Pileated Woodpecker log measuring about 3 feet. Also featured: Hog Island’s Pitcher Plants, a Ruby-throated Hummingbird nest, Monarch larvae, Sugar Kelp, Sea Lettuce, the Atlantic Puffin, Skunk Cabbage, and many more species.

Time flows very differently when you are outside for nearly every waking hour. My time on Hog Island really reinforced for me how important it is to research deeply and get immersed in a particular ecosystem over time. That is the impetus for this piece.

Ingrid Erickson: Osteology Artist Statement

May 2018.

naturalist- nat.u.ral.ist- (noun) an expert or student of natural history

Both artists and scientists are “askers” of life’s important questions. My work spans the intersection of art and science through the investigation of specific species and ecosystems—I think of myself as a “cut paper naturalist.” In my work, I explore the ornithology, botany and ecology of ecosystems. I enjoy working with and learning from scientists; I embed myself in scientific communities to do comprehensive on-site research. Each piece is individually hand cut using an X-acto knife and scissors, with up to several thousand tiny cuts per piece. I add color after cutting is complete using up to 20 layers of light-fast acrylic spray paint. Birds have always been important to me. I recently completed courses in Bird Biology and Bird Song from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in Ithaca, NY, and am an active participant in Citizen Science projects, as well as a wildlife rehab volunteer at the NC Zoo.

I would describe my creative process as “immersive.” Each project involves extensive research. Before I go into the field, I read as much as possible. I make hundreds of sketches and drawings before I begin cutting. I work from life whenever possible, as well as from natural history collections and specimens, radiographs, and my own photographs and video taken on-site. Collaborating with scientists/science-based community partners has become central to my process.

My Osteology series, researched in the bird collection at the Field Museum in Chicago, is an example of such a partnership. In preparation, I worked in the museum’s public and private collections, databases, and library with curatorial staff. The resultant wall-based installation features (up to) 224 cut paper bird skeletons inspired by the museum’s extensive avian holdings. Bird skeletons are both aesthetically and thematically interesting to me. As a former printmaker, I am drawn to the intricacy of their negative spaces, and the seemingly infinite variation of forms within avian anatomy. Specimens at the Field Museum (and most other such collections) are cataloged by species and come to the researcher as boxes full of disarticulated bones—making for an interesting process of re-imagination in order to accurately reconstruct them.

Birds often serve as important indicator species for measuring the health of the ecosystems they inhabit. A 2016 study by the North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI) found that over one third of North American bird species may face extinction “unless significant conservation actions are taken.” 2 years earlier, The State of the Birds, a joint study endorsed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, The USGS, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Environment Canada found 230 North American Species on the State of the Birds Watch List at risk for extinction. I am especially interested in conservation reliant species—species that require the perhaps permanent intervention of humans in order to continue to exist.

Other recent partner organizations include NC State Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, The Carolina Raptor Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Laurel, MD, the International Crane Foundation, Baraboo, Wisconsin, and the Duke Lemur Center.

I have enjoyed working with students aged four to adult as an artist-in-residence and teacher in a variety of settings. These include NC and TX public and private schools, community college continuing education programs, museums, preschools, and programs for gifted and talented youth and the homeless. I earned Studio Art/Art History degrees from Middlebury College in Vermont, a K-12 Art Education degree from the Maine College of Art in Portland, Maine, and taught in Asia for several years.

http://www.audubon.org/news/thirty-percent-north-american-bird-species-face-decline-across-seasons

Ingrid Erickson Artist Statement: Crane Installation,

The Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences, Rabun Gap, Georgia

April 2018.

My work in cut paper reflects the intersection of art and science. I explore the ornithology, botany, and ecology of ecosystems through the rendering of specific species. Each project involves extensive on-site research. I recently completed a course in Bird Biology from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in Ithaca, NY, and am an active participant in Citizen Science projects, as well as a wildlife rehab volunteer at the NC Zoo. The recipient of a 2015 North Carolina Arts & Science Council Artist Project Grant, I recently transformed 300 feet of paper into large-scale paper cuts featuring the 32 species of raptors being rehabilitated at the Carolina Raptor Center in Huntersville.

My new large-scale series-in-progress features Whooping Crane biology: In 1942, there were only 16 Whooping Cranes left in the world; in 1967 the species was listed as endangered. In May 2017, I spent 3 weeks as a guest artist at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, MD, where I assisted the Crane Team as a chick-rearing volunteer. To prevent the chicks from imprinting on humans, biologists wear full-body costumes, complete with puppet heads worn on one arm, mesh face coverings, and knee-length black rubber boots for wading. A pocket in the front of the costume contains a voice recorder to play adult crane “purr calls” to encourage the young cranes to follow the costumed biologists as they learn to explore their marshy environment and receive swimming lessons. Favorite moments included seeing a chick hatch, monitoring and feeding newly-hatched chicks in the ICU (they spend their first 24 hours in an incubator), learning to weigh chicks for their twice daily health exam, caring for a pair of newly-hatched Florida Sandhill Cranes at the vet hospital, and soaking up knowledge from a deeply dedicated and knowledgeable body of experts who have made this their life’s work. I came away with 2,000 photographs to work from at a later date, and sketchbooks bursting with drawings and watercolor studies of live birds, Sandhill and Whooping Crane eggs, radiographs, crane puppets, dummy eggs, skeletons, feathers, and wings.

Other recent partnerships and artist residencies include: The Jentel Foundation (Banner, WY), the “Owl’s Nest” cabin at Wildacres Retreat (Little Switzerland, NC), AZULE (Hotsprings, NC), The Grunewald Guild (Leavenworth, WA), and The Rensing Center (Pickens, SC). I was an artist in residence at Penland School of Crafts in January 2016 and at the Vermont Studio Center in May 2016. I was a guest artist at the Field Museum in Chicago, which inspired her Osteology Series, including an installation of 300 cut paper bird skeletons.