The Last weeek I found myself attending as many field trips as I could. I thoroughly enjoyed going to Pilot Knob state park with the Aquatic Ecology class. Finding the Sundew once again brought great joy to my heart, but a little bittersweet as this year there were very few of them present. The grounds …
The third week I found myself diving in a little deeper into ecology and science. I joined the aquatic ecology class when they ventured to Vermillion, SD to the Fishery to visit the Endangered Pallid Sturgeons. It was a very moving experience to be able to witness all the various stages of life of the …
Read more “The Pallid Sturgeon, Reflections on Endangerment, Life, and Looking a little Closer..”
During the second week, I found myself walking the prairie quite a bit. I seen a viceroy butterfly, common buckeye butterflies, bog orchids, and many dragonflies. The diversity of native flowers is absolutely special at Lakeside. I also spent time more time with the aquatic ecology class, which I ended up going out on the …
It brought great joy to me to be able to return to Lakeside Labs. The evening I arrived I already sat down and did a little sketch of an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, which in the morning I encountered the first one I had seen of the season which is included in the photos below. I …
My project while in residency at Lakeside began with the intention to represent Lake Okoboji. In particular, I was interested in portraying its unique bathymetry (the contours of the lake under water). I was thrilled to find several bathymetric maps of the lake in the Limnology Lab, which seemed almost abandoned – it felt like …
We arrived at Lakeside in search of a microscopic organism to recreate as an inflatable sculpture. We were unsure what lived in Okobogi Lake, but knew there were many amazing micro animals, zooplankton, and phytoplankton. We began our search in the library and explored many books on Freshwater algae, Protozoa, and freshwater invertebrates. We felt …
Space to embed myself into minds and curiosity. I found myself at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory, where I engaged with plenty of brilliant minds from Americorps and faculty from Iowa State and the University of Iowa. I also had great conversations with Zach Poff, the current artist in residence. A big shout out to Brent Mortensen and …
Lakeside Lab Report Artist-in-Residence July 1 – July 12, 2024 Kristin M Roach 12 days One cannot speak of Iowa Lakeside Lab without mentioning the incredible community housed there. The residency was a wonderful experience in itself—12 days in the studio, untethered from daily responsibilities, surrounded by nature, with a dedicated workspace and meals …
What’s the sound of temperature? How about humidity, radiation, and pressure, among the many ecological forces we experience but don’t hear? I considered questions like these as I collected environmental data using a device called the Arable Mark, which monitors weather, plants, soil, and irrigation, and created a set of five linked installations at Lakeside …
I arrived at Lakeside Lab with a bag of recording equipment and a desire to reflect on the “underheard” sounds of the campus: sonic details that go un-noticed by us but might reveal the lives of our non-human neighbors. The result was this sound composition: Listen to “Lakeside Lab Ecotones” (20min) Note: The piece was …
We started Parts Per Million Collective to change our understanding of art and art making. We feel art can and should begin to take a more active role in the climate crisis. To us, this means creating works to directly benefit the environment. Our pathway to this goal is through research, testing, and merging carbon …
My art practice centers on film, video and photography, and in my time at Lakeside Lab I focused on making photo/video work studying the surrounding prairie landscapes and environment. And so I spent a lot of time venturing into expanses of prairie near the lab, observing, listening, taking photos, getting stung by thistles. I’m not …
I am writing this as a reflection back on my AiR at Lakeside Lab Iowa, Lake Okoboji. As an artist, researcher, and educator, the Lakeside Lab AiR gave me a very rare gift for two weeks – the gift of time. During this time I’ve been writing, reading, and making progress on a new phase …
I love experiments and surprises and thrive on these in my artistic practice. I use unframed raw canvas, taffeta, and satin to create large mixed media landscapes. I layer highly-pigmented color “soups” on the fabric and trace cast shadows from my immediate natural and built environment. Back in the studio, I dress these figures in …
As a true Gemini, I’ve had quite a few occupations. I’ve been an ice cream store clerk, business operations manager, entrepreneur, HR specialist, advertising guru, administrative assistant, housekeeper, social worker, post-secondary student, instructor, professor, mother, and life partner. And yes, I’ve been an artist. Being an artist and creator has been my one constant …
I sat on an old wooden picnic table, framed by the hanging boughs of an oak tree, the glistening blue lake hazy in the heat of summer. Birds sang many songs, harmonized by the chirping of grasshoppers, crickets, buzzing flies, the distant groan of lawnmowers and boats, alongside echoes of their riders’ laughter – a …
Chapter 1? Here I sit with a plan to write and maybe make space for my brain to work the way I hope it can. It’s been a year since I was at Lakeside Lab Artist Residency. It was a life changing experience. Simply getting invited to call myself an artist was humbling. I took …
There’s value in Science. As humans, we are well-practiced in gathering data and putting it into categories, to make sense of a world we are merely getting to know. Science helped us moving “forward” as a species, creating technology that makes my artist brain spin by only thinking about it. Science is awesome. What fuels …
Scientists and artists practice imagining better, more meaningful, more integrated futures. There are many forces that threaten this practice: existentialism; injustice; denial; scarcity. These threatening forces can be investigated in balance with the practice of imagination when the art-science partnership is most effective. At Lakeside Lab, artists connect with scientists in effective partnerships that support …
Introduction By Kim Cassisa Since returning home after living at Lakeside Lab for two weeks this summer, I have struggled to answer the question I get from friends and coworkers – “what was it like?” My experience at Lakeside fell somewhere between summer camp, vacation, and retreat. It was none of these things entirely but …
In recent years, I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with field recordings of American folk music. I got a job transcribing songs recorded by musicologists, all over early twentieth century America. The recordings are grainy, noisey, difficult to make out, and often stunningly beautiful. Listening to them feels like peeking through a window into …
Read more “I have hidden fifteen cassette tapes across Lakeside Lab’s campus”
This experience inspired me! I will be forever grateful for the two weeks I spent making and being outdoors at the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory. I wish I was there at a different time since the pandemic made it a little hard to socialize the way I would have liked to, but I’m still grateful for …
Hello again, Iowa … … it’s been a minute! Although I now reside in the Twin Cities, I spent most of my life (outdoors!) in Iowa. I grew up in eastern Iowa, spending most summers floating the Maquoketa River, feeding ducks at Iowa City’s city park, and running to and around Pictured Rocks State Park. …
This report was written after the residency period 12-26-2020 -to- 1-15-2021. Photos denoted with an asterisk* are by Robb Klassen an L.A.-based photographer and friend of the artist. After having spent the greater part of three days unfurling bits and pieces of my studio at home, I arrived at Lakeside Lab in the late afternoon …
Thoughts of a landscape are you still there Everything about the summer sky is spectacular, showy, theatrical. The starts in the evening, the moons at midnight, the rays of the morning sun – they all shine with special brilliance. In summer, the waters of lakes and ponds mirror the clouds by day, the moon by …
Fluffy cottonwood seeds, silently floating over the water surface. Different colors of soil, revealing something about the place where they belong. Eurasian watermilfoil, curly leaf pond weed, spirogyra.. drifting in the waters of Millers Bay, Okoboji Lake. And sounds of the birds that I never heard before.. To name just a few of the things …
My project is about soybean and how it becomes a sign of the trade war between Beijing and Washington. I was inspired by a dramatic piece of news last year that a vessel contains tonnes of soybeans lingered in the ocean to wait for a final decision of the tariff. ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-06/it-s-full-steam-ahead-as-u-s-soy-cargo-speeds-up-in-tariff-race ) I cannot have such …
I sat by the cold fire pit on Saturday morning watching the dawn before breakfast. I sketched the pelicans enjoying the unruffled water of little miller’s bay. Before long, a few dozen had gathered, each splashing down with unexpected grace for such a big bird. I remembered the afternoon of quiet reflection a few days …
I jumped in with both feet. That is, I left on a three day trip with the Ichthyology class hours after I arrived at Iowa Lakeside Lab to begin my two week residency. I was last-minute invited along with Neil Bernstein’s fishes class to Northeast and Southeast Iowa to do some sampling in different types …
This week I did more plankton trails with my home-brewed software. It can be tricky to record the right video, as the bigger zooplankton like to swim into the frame and obliterate all the detail. But I got a few good ones. A small cladoceran generating a large current: Also saw a few things I’ve …
I cannot believe how quickly the second week of the residency flew by. The first couple days of the second week, I was on an art making grind, trying to get all of the work that was in progress completed for the Open Studio Visitation on Thursday. Over the weekend, I had received some tree …
Read more “Transcendence of Tensegrity; Awareness of the Collective Connection”
2 weeks at Iowa Lakeside Lab… Documentary Project Currently working on a long form documentary project scoped to finish winter 2019. This is one section on Paul Weihe. Stay tuned for the final documentary film! Sunrise Kayak Mission
I spent much of the week looking at plankton with the microscope I brought along. From the samples collected around the lab, I was amazed at how similar the zooplankton looked to central Wisconsin. I saw many of the same types of copepods, cladocerans, rotifers etc. I made a sort of plankton kaleidoscope video with …
Lakeside Labs and my rehabilitation… Upon arrival to Lakeside Labs I had an overwhelming feeling that I had just checking into a rehab center. Maybe it was the housing, communal dining, or all the friendly faces… either way I was out of my comfort zone and starting to have withdrawals from the life I once …
Read more “Re_Adjusting to Nature // Re_Discovering Science”
When I arrived the first day to Lakeside Labs, I only experienced the tip of the iceberg of the incredible that was yet to come. The first two days were all about getting acclimated to the culture of Lakeside Labs, whether it be early morning yoga sessions, exploring the area, listening in on lectures, attending …
Read more “An Immersion Into a Symbiotic Relationship with Nature”
“We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act.” — Charles Darwin During my two-week residency at the Lakeside Lab AIR, I made a series of creative projects inspired by site-specific findings. Located alongside West Okoboji …
6/18 On Monday morning, with the animal behavior class, we released some sunfish, pike, bass and minnows that we had gathered for predator/prey experiments. It was a rainy morning, so we went to a coffee shop to talk about parenting behavior. During the discussion, Neil got a phone call from Dwight who restores natural prairies …
Read more “It is Important to be Fascinated by the Little Things”
Monday Hannah and Richelle and I go out with Neil’s class and collect samples of smaller organisms in the muck in one of the locations around the west side of the lake. I decided late last week that I wanted to make sure I saw as much as I could around the lake and soak …
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” ― Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder How often do you spend time in nature? Do you connect with nature daily? Do you listen for bird calls or get up close to a spider’s web …
Read more “Artist and scientists must inspire others to see like them.”
6/10 I began my drive to Iowa from Kalamazoo, Michigan on June 10th. It was my first trip into the state, and I really had no ideas of what Iowa or its landscape would be like. I was not altogether surprised that it was flat, but had not considered the vastness of the landscape before …
Read more “Mucky Areas, Animal Behavior, and the Value of Observation”
Day one I was anxious the two days before departing for the residency up at lakeside labs. I didn’t sleep well. I didn’t pack until Sunday afternoon when I drove up and kept forgetting things. The drive up was perfect, sunny, and clear. Driving past the etched checkerboard of lines the Jeffersonian Grid, those mile …
Read more “Visual Research and Spontaneous Studies from Life”
Week 2 – No comfort in a growth zone, no growth in a comfort zone The good news — no poison ivy yet! Sunday There was a lovely parents brunch today. Lisa Roti did a beautiful job decorating the room and Erika created a buffet that was really lovely. I’d like to add that the …
Read more “No comfort in a growth zone, no growth in a comfort zone”
For more than 5,000 years, tallgrass prairies occupied 240 million acres of North America’s landscape, about 85% of the Midwest. All of this changed in the 1800s with European settlement. Settlers arrived with the goal of “breaking the land,” to replace the rolling prairies with productive farmland. They succeeded, and today, from region to region, …
Week 1 – Becoming Intimate With fear Face toward your fear, leap into your fear, and . . . smile at fear. But the main teaching is that you actually can stay with it, you actually can turn towards it, you actually can leap into it rather than having it set off this chain reaction. …
To the being fully alive, the future is not ominous but a promise; it surrounds the present as a halo. It consists of possibilities that are felt as a possession of what is now and here. In life that is truly life, everything overlaps and merges. – John Dewey Our word radical …
Read more “The Prairie Flower and the radical nature of experimentation”
WEEK 2 Day 7 Saturday, May 19 Worked on journal most of the day. After dinner went to Loon Lake. Tried another time lapse and some recordings of the lake, spillway and drainpipe in the ditch. Started moving the microphone to hear how sound changes with direction and when it bounces off of walls like …
Read more “Experimentation, learning, collection, and wilderness adventures”
How do you quantify the value of a place, and determine the amount of space it deserves to claim? How do you measure the worth of a life, and the home and wellbeing that this life is worthy of? These are questions that I have found myself regularly wrestling with in different contexts. …
Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart. – Robin Wall Kimmerer I had a chance to go on a canoe ride with Mindy Morales-Williams’ Aquatic Ecology class on Tuesday. It was their second day of class, and they were collecting samples from …
Day One, Sunday, May 13 I arrived around 2pm, got a brief tour and then moved into my room and studio. I had to look around so I took a walk down to the water and looped back to the studio. Saw an eagle! The landscape has some elevation here, so there are more interesting …
Being deeply immersed in the web of nature’s way over the last four weeks has been an enlightening experience. The opportunity to work with and learn from the scientists at Iowa Lakeside Lab has added another educational dimension to this experience for which I am grateful. Through self-reflection, contemplation, direct observation, identification guides, classroom participation, …
Read more “Indra’s Net: Interconnectedness and the Ecology of Okoboji”
Week 1 (June 9th-16th, 2017) My first week here at Lakeside Lab has been full of all types of exploring. From exploring the grounds where Lakeside Lab is located, the collections in the many labs, and the lands that surround West Lake Okoboji. I arrived during the evening of June 9th, where I briefly walked …
Read more “Exploring the Grounds, the Collections, and the Land”
For the last three weeks, daily, close observation and contact within the natural world has led to two experiential realizations: 1) everything is changing (impermanence) and 2) the seemingly perfect design of all things is refreshingly imperfect. These realizations have been helpful in both my personal and professional lives. In twenty-one days, I have seen …
Read more “Imperfectly Perfect: Toward a Middle Way of Nature’s Chaos & Order”
What a mess and a blessing, to be back on the lake, expected to present a studio full of made objects for the benefit of expanding the students’ horizons. I am examining my anxiety levels with interest and frantically pasting tissue paper to sticks. I’ve become known for being a person who carries sticks around …
Read more “A Mess, a Blessing, a Giant Screen, and a lot of Sticks”
WEEK 2 REPORT After an amazing first week, the second week started out with a bang as I became even more deeply embedded in the ecology of the Lake Okoboji region. The highlight was having an incredible opportunity to experience the multitude of micro/macro relationships that exist in the natural world. This included learning, through …
Read more “Exploring the Micro/Macro Relationship: Worlds within Worlds within Our World”
During my second week at Lakeside, I spent a lot of time exploring specimen collections here and made some drawings based on my findings. In King Lab I found drawers of taxidermy birds, a cabinet housing an entomology collection, and a variety of plant specimens dried and labeled in clear boxes. I’m curious about collection …
Week two… where has the time gone. The past few days have been full of exploration including a field study on soil, sound recording above and below the water line, creating sound maps, creating light maps, exploring data gathered both digitally and through scientific testing, and a mild first of the year sun burn. In …
WEEK 1 Report: Reigniting the Wonder Lamp of the Natural World Upon arrival, I explored all of the labs and hiked the trails on the property to get a sense of where I would be living and working for the next month. Immediately, I developed a sense of place that felt like home. Home, in …
I loved sharing the studio with other artists. I ran around this week scanning the environment and experimenting with sound visualization.
Do you like kayaking, microscopes, great conversation, science, and food? Well, you would fit in great at Lakeside Lab. Week one of the Lakeside Lab Artist in Residency has been full of discussion, inquiry, learning, and exploration of the environment and topics relevant not only to ecology and science but art and design as well. …
Read more “Scientific data, ethics, personal awareness, & environmental impacts”
As an artist whose work is primarily inspired by the natural world, but whose understanding of ecology is more experiential than academic or scientific, the opportunity to sit in on classes at Lakeside Laboratory has been an invaluable experience. I’ve lived in the Midwest for less than a year, so I came into this residency …
Read more “At Lakeside, everyday conversations are peppered with impromptu lessons”
I got to spend this week tagging along with the various classes around campus and learning about the geography and ecosystems around Okoboji. I’m finishing this week full of inspiration and a thirst to learn more from all the great professors on campus. On my mind: diatoms, maps, and genetic algorithms.