BOTANICA MAGNIFICA by Pam Rodgers

Pam Rogers has an eye for the organic. She is constantly experiencing the natural world around her, engaging and immersing herself within each piece of natural material. Most of her materials come from the Capitol Hill neighborhood around CHAW, found on her walk from the parking lot on the days she comes in to create. In the gallery installation, you can find leaves from the magnolia tree in the front yard of CHAW, seeds, flowers, and twigs scattered along the Capitol Hill sidewalks, but she also pulls from her home garden and neighborhood park. Pam’s creations are bound, wired, sewn, and wrapped. She fiddles piece by piece before adding final decor and attaching them to our gallery walls. Her process is instinctive; her hands work automatically. Pam is keeping a daily sketchbook journaling her process. She has drawings, written techniques, failures, and success in her work; the pages are colorful and the book is a work of art in itself.

Not only is Pam’s work about the structural installation on the walls, it involves experimentation in the 2D form as well. Keeping up her natural and organic aesthetic, Pam uses artist made pigments and inks sourced from local plants, soils and minerals. In addition to the expanding wall foliage, Pam is creating a narrative paper scroll. Pam has brilliantly decided to take her site-specific installation a step further to truly intertwine her drawing and sculpture; she has begun experimenting on what inks can be used to draw directly onto our gallery walls! Pam’s ingenuity is exciting to watch. She grinds and stains her “wall-template” with home made colors from flowers and what she calls, earth minerals, old tea bags, soils, and ink pens. Conscious of her space and materials she is eager to see what materials work best; the joy she finds in her work is palpable. Being able to watch the artist at works is a beautiful experience. It is an honest representation of Pam and the technical yet intuitive process behind Botanica Magnifica is a pure reproduction of the artist herself.

ARTIST STATEMENT FOR BOTANICA MAGNIFICA:

“While in Residence at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop (CHAW), I will be highlighting and focusing on the way materials and process drive and shape the work I create using natural materials sourced from local plants species, both invasive and native, I will create an installation that is sculptural in form mounted throughout the gallery. Created from bound plants, these objects will be created in the gallery space offering visitors a chance to see the process, watch it develop in the space and ultimately seeing the final creation.

I will work to create narrative scrolls (using Hajji paper/ mulberry paper) and/ or large-scale paper works utilizing artist made pigments and inks sourced from plants, soil and minerals with a local connection. Portions of this work will be created in the gallery during the residency informing the content as it is created alongside the sculptural pieces. I will be keeping a daily sketchbook journal recording the residency to document the pigments used and the plants included as well as the process, successes and failures as the spontaneity of the time and place also drive the work.

Engaging the community in the project will include interaction as possible during the creation of the sculptural pieces and the work on paper. Also engaging the community through an opening with an artist driven demonstration of some of the work to be created and a closing reception with much of the gallery filled with sculpture and 2-D work creating a specific Botanica Magnifica environment.” – Pam Rogers