Bamboo harvest

Our dear friend Gary Vondrasek, who donated his bamboo for us to use!

Ellen driving Danne Rahesa's little red truck that helped us carried the bamboo back to our headquarter.

Zach Norton secured the bamboo to make sure they don't slide from the truck. Thanks for your help friend!

Maquette

making plans

From a doodled note passed in class that sparked the project....

 ....to the frantically scribbled details of materials.

 From the carefully planned out geometric design....

 .... to the google-ing of high school geometry, again, and again, and again. 

 From the notes of classmates' ideas and connections....

.... to the reading of a professional's experiences,

we have made plans, scratched them, planned again, tossed out ideas, re-planned, settled on plans, fallen into plans, doubted plans, and watched plans miraculously unfold. 

so much for that plan.

now the PLAN is only to BE OPEN to the master plan.

started with a walk together..

We didn't know each other well, just started our Art Therapy Counseling program.
We went for Sculpture on Campus walk together..
We looked at the sculpture works of 10 people.

Ellen got inspired...

I got inspired...

Both started sharing... thinking
Wanting to do something..
Something interactive....
Something... together...

School works took over...but the desire remains
Ellen started the ball to roll...
She gave birth to the idea..
"What do you think: a labyrinth/maze based on SIUE campus map?

artist statement

The Key to SIUE functions on several different levels as a meditative tool, as a process-based art therapy technique, and as significant challenge to the University culture.  The design of our sculpture references the labyrinth, a circular form with pathways that guide a mover towards the center.  In ancient Western literary accounts like the Cretan Labyrinth with the Minotaur, the term signified a confusing situation recreated by the maze-like pathways of half of our sculpture.  However, in depictions and in its Eastern roots, the labyrinth was not a place where one gets lost, but rather a guiding path toward the center and an encounter with self and insight.  This symbolic geometry of our design offers the viewer a space to contemplate these and other dichotomies. 

The process of building The Key to SIUE was particularly important an art therapy technique.  As graduate students in the Art Therapy program, the sculpture offered a way for us to explore our cultures of origin—Indonesia and America—as well as our artistic trainings—formal and informal—and ways of approaching the world—right- and left-brained.  We each chose simple materials with which we were most comfortable and also represented our struggles between, as Corita Kent writes in Learning by Heart, the Eastern “task of the maker to project the chosen theme in the best possible way—not, as in the West, to project a personal viewpoint or message.” 

Ultimately, our sculpture stands as a challenge to all students, faculty, and staff at SIUE.  By creating this mini-replica of the campus map at the main entrance, we call attention to architect, Gyo Obata’s original design for the campus to reflect the natural beauty of the land and offer many chances to appreciate the landscape.  However, in the hurry of university-life, the winding pathways at SIUE are often a source of frustration for many students.  The Key to SIUE sculpture reminds every person to appreciate the journey of education and life.