Art Exhibit Captures Diversity of Life, Nature in Clay

Around 50 people gathered in the Goodyear Gallery on Tuesday for Joelle Cicak’s ’16 opening exhibit “Murmuration,” and accompanying talk emphasizing the importance of environmental issues such as mass extinction.

Cicak underscored her passion for nature and animal rights by incorporating current environmental issues in to her exhibit.

From a young age, Cicak has had a strong appreciation for nature. In her talk, she reminisced on the feelings she had while exploring nature and diverse ecosystems as a child. She said, “my parents would take my sister and me on all of these long cross country road trips where we would go from national park to national park to state parks to wildlife refuges.”

Stephanie Czmar ’19 / The Dickinsonian
A Head, A Hollow Husk

She also remembers “going to these places and being awestruck by the expansiveness of it all.” Along these biocentric road trips Cicak’s parents taught her and her sister the importance of appreciating the natural world. As Cicak put it, “throughout this time period, my parents would have these conversations with us where they would explain the importance of protecting these environments.”

Cicak described another “family ritual” that influenced her: “whenever there was any kind of interesting animal in our backyard, and by interesting, I mean anything more uncommon than a squirrel, so even a little group of crows would spark our interest and we would stop whatever we were doing… and we would shuffle really quietly to the windows and turn off all of the lights and stand completely still and watch these animals in our backyard and just appreciate them for existing.”

Cicak realizes how much these experiences impacted her life.

“… the idea that these animals are so important that we would stop our daily activates just to observe them while they were in our environment, even for just a few minutes, was really shaking for me.”

The exhibit is split into three different styles. The first is the casts of bones and sticks that were fired through a kiln. The second comprises of two black and dark green sculptures covered in feathers. The final section of the exhibit displays 20 different foods, mounted on the wall, that were also cast and burned in the kiln.

Stephanie Czmar ’19 / The Dickinsonian
The Inhospitable Nests

For the first section Cicak collected bones from a deer, a pigeon and a rabbit, twigs and marigold stems. She stated that all of the animals were dead when she found them and that the deer skull and leg bones were donated to her by a family friend who hunts and had no purpose for them.

She burned the animals in the kiln, after dipping them into a casting slip. Cicak described the process that occurs once the bones are in the kiln. “The kiln gets so hot,” she said, “that all of the organic material turns to ash. The ash [then] melts and creates a gas that glazes the surface of whatever they are on.” The same process was repeated for the nests, made from the twigs and marigold stems. She then placed them on clay mold she built for each of them.

The exhibit also features two large feathered sculptures made by attaching synthetic feathers to chicken wire with a clay mold. These pieces resemble that of a humongous bird.

The final part of the exhibit was a display of 20 more distinct items that were burned through the kiln, this time they were foods that Cicak remembers feeding her pets in the past. These mounted pieces all look similar to each other, even though the foods ranged from cheese and crackers to grasshoppers to strawberries.

Like the other pieces of Cicak’s art, the foods that she selected to fire had very specific meaning behind them. Cicak said that the foods she selected are “foods I would have fed specific pets I have had in my life, and they are attached to specific memories.”

Cicak strongly believes that animals living in the wild should be as highly regarded as our household pets. “Animals that live outside of our fences should have the same rights [as our pets],” Cicak said. She clarified that she is not advocating for a vegan lifestyle but instead she wants people to have a heightened awareness for the extinction of animals living around them.

Noah Thompson ’17 is also majoring in Art & Art History as well as English, and was very impressed with Cicak’s work. “The way that she’s taken synthetic, inorganic, and organic materials and melded them together in a way that makes it seem like they originated from the same creature or the same source is very powerful,” said Thompson.

He was also very admiring of the work process that was necessary to create the entirety of her exhibit. Thompson elaborated: “it takes a lot of skill and thought process to be able to do that, you have to be very methodical in the ways you do that, but she’s got it down to almost an exact science, and a lot of this is like art combined with science, so she has been able to master both in a sense.” 

Stephanie Czmar ’19 / The Dickinsonian
The Ensnaring Shelter

Cicak is still working at Dickinson as she is the 2016-17 Dickinson Department of Art & Art History’s post-baccalaureate artist-in-residence. This is an internship program that the college offers to Art & Art History majors, and Cicak has the yearlong opportunity to work on her art portfolio in Goodyear, as well as audit art classes. Cicak has also served as a valuable mentor for younger art students. The school also provides finances to help her pay for her art projects. 

She describes her experiences thus far with the program in a positive light: “I feel like I have learned so much so far and I am still going to continue to learn throughout the extent of this internship.”

“I feel like I have grown so much as an artist because of this,” Cicak said.

The exhibit will be on display until March 10.