Environmental artist sculpts RI's legacy

By Doug Norris/Arts & Living Editor

CHARLESTOWN - The woods surrounding the Kettle Pond Visitor Center resound in natural and human history. From the glacial sweep that created the landscape, depositing erratics and carving out kettle ponds during its retreat, to the trails trampled by Narragansett Indians hunting wild turkey and deer, the forest bears subtle marks of its long journey.

For environmental artist Ana Flores of Charlestown, these woods and their legacy served as inspiration for an arts project that, once completed, will be two years in the making. Flores, who is artist-in-residence at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has created a series of sculptures for the trails at Kettle Pond, drawing on the diverse heritage of the Ocean State. The project was funded by U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, the Rhode Island Foundation and Friends of the R.I. National Wildlife Refuges.

"The sculptures ended up being my response to digging into the history of this landscape," Flores said. "I wanted to make people aware of the human presence that we can't always see."

There are three main levels of history in the sculptural installation that evoke the Narragansett, Colonial and slave cultures of South County. Works are figural, but abstracted, and made of

natural materials.

"They are intentionally organic," Flores said. "Some are designed to have moss grow over them. Others will have animals visiting or running through them. As much as possible I would like them to become part of the landscape, to be integrated, not intrusive."

The sculptures will be installed in trails leading out from the visitor center in May, coinciding with an art, culture and nature conference at the center called "Sedimentations." Visitors will be able to pick up a map at Kettle Pond and track the art along the trails. Each sequence of figures will have an interpretive box that will contain brief historical notes, an explanation of the sculptures and a log for people to record their thoughts, responses, experiences and observations.

"The theme of this project is digging into layers of history that we can't easily read into the landscape," Flores said. "The sculptures, the conference and even our monthly Green Cafe presentations are all designed to do the same thing: to connect people to the landscape, to bring us closer to the environment around us."

The Green Café, created by Flores as part of her residency, presents programs on art and the environment once a month at the center. They've proven to be hugely popular, so much so that Fish and Wildlife has provided funding to extend the series through next fall. Flores is also working on developing the series as a model for environmental organizations across the nation.

The sculptures were mostly created from materials found in the woods of Charlestown, using natural, organic media relevant to the time periods. Three standing Narragansett Indian figures are faceless, with upper bodies represented by the bramble of pepperbush, decorated with leaf and feather. Their legs were created with a cement mix of peat moss and Pearlite. Flores plans to spread yogurt on them to spur moss and lichen growth.

A slave and its owner, both also faceless, are carved from wood and adorned with scrap metal, from the shackles of the slave to the vest of his master.

Female Colonial figures convey domesticity, using lumber milled and stones found on the artist's own property, integrating notions of the family barn, stone wall and other architectural features of the period into their design. They'll be placed in a cellar hole along one of the trails, a feature from Colonial days that is common to South County woods but often overlooked in the overgrowth.

"I realized later that only the women had faces," Flores said. "I didn't do that intentionally, but while researching the period, I was surprised that I couldn't find out much at all about them. It was as if they didn't have a voice. So maybe subconsciously I wanted to give them a face."

Flores had experimented using briar bush in the Colonial figures. "But they looked too witchy," she said. "I didn't want to scare any children."

For the interpretive boxes, she has turned to a variety of sources. Members of the Narragansett tribe will contribute quotes for one of the histories. "I didn't want to write their history for them," she said. The Colonial figures will be accompanied by quotes from Robert M. Thorson's definitive stone wall book, "Stone By Stone."

Flores is still working on an idea for a fourth piece in the installation, representing here and now. One possibility is a mirror box.

"It's the idea of Who are we?" she said. "What have we learned? And what do we want to leave behind?"

The modern element may be intentionally ambiguous, left to people's imaginations, provoking thought about the continuum of life and the meditative quality of nature, which Flores described as "better than church." But collectively the sculptures themselves will be a tactile presence in the woods, a stopping point for human visitors and diversion or habitat for other species.

"I'm hoping we see birds resting among the Narragansetts, chipmunks creeping through the Colonial figures and squirrels scrambling out of the slave owner," she said. "They're all built so the animals will start taking over."

Even so, they won't be permanent fixtures in the landscape. Flores deliberately designed the installation to be temporary. The figures will be removed after four to six months.

"I didn't want to take over the trails," she said. "I want them to go back to just being wild."

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