Blending Science and Art!

I stumbled upon this interesting sculptor recently. Technically, she's not a sculptor at all, rather, she's a basket weaver.

Yes. A basket weaver.

Her name is Nathalie Miebach and she's also an amateur climatologist. Strangely enough she has a tendency to blend her two hobbies...

Things Robert thinks are absolutely incapable of being mixed (successfully):

• oil and water
• electrons and positrons
• potassium and water
• alligator gars and kittens
• bulls and china shops
• basket weaving and decades of climate change data

She has managed to do it. Ms. Miebach has successfully blended basket weaving with climate change data. Yeah, I was skeptical at first too, but take a look at her work!

Warm Winter - Reed, wood, data, 6’x 5’x6’, 2007

According to the artist, this piece has a 24-hour base and contains locally collected data (from Herring Cove, Maine), regional buoy data (Gulf of Maine Observation System), and historical data (NOAA and U.S. Naval Observatory). In total, the piece contains data for wind speed and direction, tides, moon phases, and air, water, and soil temperatures collected daily from December 2006 to January 2007.

That's a lot of data.

Representing data visually in a 3D format is a very interesting idea, and it's quite aesthetically pleasing, however I don't know how practical it really is. But since when was art supposed to be practical?

Anyway, I think it's rather beautiful. Here are a few others.

Antarctic Tidal Rhythms - Reed, wood, styrofoam, data, 8’ x 6’ x 3’, 2006

Changing Water - Gulf of Maine - mixed media, data, 20’ x 10’ x 1’, 2011

She also translates data into musical scores! Also very intriguing. If you care to take a listen or check out more of Ms. Miebach's artwork, visit her website here!