The WISE program is an elective English course open to all IHS seniors. Half of the year is structured like a normal English class, but the second half of the year is devoted to an intensive project of one’s choosing. Two of my friends, Ned Carlson ‘19 and Maren Korb ‘19, are currently working on projects involving art. I interviewed them to learn more about their passions and to show juniors how great of an opportunity the WISE project can be.
Ned Carlson Works to Showcase Art in New Gallery
Eleanor Randl ‘19: Can you tell me a little bit about your WISE project?
Ned Carlson ‘19: I’m making land art, but I’m also focusing on doing a gallery exhibition, a solo exhibition, with the Community Arts Partnership (CAPs) gallery. I am also their inaugural artist in the space.
ER: When is the exhibition?
NC: It opens April 5. Everyone should go!
ER: I know you do a lot of paintings of your land art. Are you going to be showcasing paintings of your land art or photos of it?
NC: The mediums I work in are pictures, large prints, 30 by 40, 20 by 30, and 11 by 14.
ER: What do you hope to learn while doing this WISE project?
NC: I hope to learn about how to navigate the art scene, [and] how I can respond to adversity, like facing time constraints and things like that with hard deadlines, such as the gallery opening. I also want to learn how to talk about my art with the community.
ER: What are some challenges you have faced so far?
NC: The logistics of moving things around and setting up . . . but also pricing, because it’s really expensive to print out these enormous photos, and I have to try to find a way to do that cheaply. So I have to look for different scholarships and things like that. From the CAPs gallery, they have a grant you can apply for and get up to $1,500. If I got that grant I wouldn’t have to spend any more money. But I still have to order the prints, and put them up in the space.
ER: What message do you want to convey with your art?
NC: At the most basic level, I hope people just realize that there are all these patterns in the world around them and if they paid more attention they could actually see and appreciate. But also, I want to bring awareness to these different components of ecosystems that might be adversely impacted by whatever we as consumers are doing.
ER: Can you talk a little bit about the process of making a land art sculpture?
NC: Depending on what the weather is and what type of materials are available, sometimes I’ll plan it out if it’s with a material that’s more easily mappable. So something that’s not going to change that much like rocks. But a lot of the time, it’s more on-the-spot. I will be walking through the woods, I will notice something, and say to myself “I should remember that”, or I will just do something with it right then and there. Generally it takes a lot of time though, because you have to find the right location; the location is just as important as what you are actually going to do with the materials. You have to find and collect materials, you have to figure out how to put them together, and you have to figure out how to photograph it as well.
ER: What is the last land art sculpture you did?
NC: It’s a pretty simple one. It’s like the equivalent of a doodle. Which is just single-stone balances. I think that was in Maine. I haven’t done one for a while, because in the winter I generally don’t do as many. There’s only so many things you can do with snow and ice.
ER: What are you excited about for your project?
NC: I’m excited to have my first solo exhibition, that’s going to be really cool. I’m also excited that it was not too difficult (relative to what I’ve done so far) to get a solo exhibition. So I’m excited that that’s possibly an indication of what could be coming down the road.
Maren Korb Redecorates Antique Furniture to Sell
Eleanor Randl ‘19: What is your WISE project?
Maren Korb ‘19: I am buying antique furniture, and then if it has paint on it, I will strip it down, scrape all the paint off, sand it down, and design it with a new look and repaint it. Then I re-sell it on Craigslist.
ER: What types of furniture have you redone so far?
MK: The last piece I did was a dressing table. I painted it a nice blue color with white detailing, and sold it for $120.
ER: And what is something that you’re excited about for your project?
MK: I get really excited when I see an old piece of furniture, and I [think], “Oh, my God, I could totally remake that into something new.” I get really excited about transitioning it.
ER: Are the pieces usually kind of worn down and you have to transform them or are they in better shape? Or does it just depend on the piece?
MK: Well, it depends on the piece. The ones I got at the real estate sale [in North Carolina]—some of them were broken, one of them had cracks in the side that I had to fix. Generally, the paint is kind of falling off. They’re usually in pretty bad shape and I have to repair them.
ER: Did you have the necessary skills going into your project, or are you learning how to do them with the project?
MK: My dad is a farmer, so he has a really big woodshop outside my house. He has all the tools that I need, so I just ask my brother to teach me how to use saws and stuff like that. So I got basic knowledge just from my Dad and my brother. And then for other things, I read books and learned how to do stuff.
ER: What do you think interests you about discovering old things?
MK: I guess I have always liked antiques and I always thought it was so cool how people used to live so differently. And I think it’s really interesting that everything around us has a story, and if you replayed everything that’s happened to it, there would be so many people just around this one piece of furniture. So I always thought that was interesting.
ER: How do you hold onto that meaning and value of something while making it new again?
MK: The pieces I have are worn down, no one was using them, so they would just be sitting in a shed or something. So I just think, “Why not take this and turn it into something new that someone can use and enjoy again?”
ER: What do you hope to learn during this project?
MK: I like being able to know how to do stuff like this. When I’m older, I really want to have a house where I have done everything myself. I want to learn how to be able to do that for myself.