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The Western Oregon University Magazine

Climate literacy: the essential principles of climate sciences | Going for gold...and platinum | Evolving resources: paper vs. electronic | Improving water quality through art | WOU professor appointed to governor's autism commission | Advising excellence earns national award | Commencement 2009 highlights | Marc "Ted" Winters building named | The world's greenest building comes to Independence

Improving water quality through art
By Gail Oberst, Luckiamute Watershed councilor

At the edge of Diana Wurzer and Bayard McLeod’s art project, a bit of brown scum gathers, hesitates, and then is slowly sucked into the “pod” and disappears. A day after anchoring two of these unusual art pieces into a shallow stream that feeds the middle fork of Ash Creek north of Monmouth, the two WOU students returned with their instructor, Mary Harden to see if their “pods” were performing their functions.

(above photo) Mary Harden, assistant professor of art and her students, Baryard McLeod and Diana Wurzer, talk to Michael Cairns of the Luckiamute Watershed Council as the pod they designed does its work.

They were. The pods, artistic structures created from willows and filled with local grasses and materials, were filtering mud from the shallow stream that ran through the farm that it watered.

“It’s great to know that art can be something more than something pretty that hangs on a wall,” said Michael Cairns, Luckiamute Watershed Council project manager who recently helped Harden and her 3-D Design students place the completed pods.

Harden’s students typically build several pieces during the course of a term, but this term, fellow Western communications studies associate professor, Dr. Emily Plec, who is a member of the Luckiamute Watershed Council, suggested something new. The design unit that required students to create a piece of art that curved outward, called “convexivity,” this term included ideas from California artist Daniel McCormick. The students went to work creating designs of their own that would fit the Ash Creek landscape.

The first class has produced seven small “pods,” and to make these, the students cut the willow saplings into four to seven-foot lengths, formed hoops from some of them and long strips of the others, then fastened them together with raffia and hemp. Inside the pods went more willow cuttings, grasses, leaves and other organic materials that might filter water.

“It had to be useful, but it had to be beautiful, too,” said Harden. The students staked the organic pod forms into the creek bed with fresh willow cuttings that will take root in the water and may possibly create brushy shade along the creek.

“Shade’s the only thing that will get rid of the reed canary grass,” Cairns said, pointing to the choking tall weed growing in clumps along the creek. If all goes as planned, the pods will not only filter the creek’s water, but they will also slow it and gently divert it, creating meandering pools that attract native fish.

McLeod, a fisherman and firefighter who is graduating this spring, appreciates that his work is practical as well as beautiful. “I’d like to see more projects like this where we’re improving water quality.”

“I think it’s great that you can use a piece of art to help out,” said Wurzer. “It’s green art.”

Harden plans to create more pods in her future classes. Her students will be able to modify their designs as they see how the current pods react to the currents and quirks of the creek.

On the cover:
WOU sophomore Diana Wurzer inspects the additional pods created by her classmates. Each willow pod is different, reflecting the artist's inclinations and the available materials. Photos by Gail Oberst

 

 

For more information about the watershed council and its work with educators and other partners, visit the Web site, http://luckiamute.watershedcouncils.net.

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