MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
February 13, 2023
This week we recognize Perri Lynch Howard, and her twenty plus year practice in public art and acoustic installations.
Floating Datum: Fixed Grid, 2005 (above), an outdoor site-specific work, created an interstitial relationship between the natural rhythms of Pritchard Park, a 50-acre former Superfund environmental cleanup site on the shore of Bainbridge Island's Eagle Harbor in Washington State, and mankind’s systematic tendencies towards land use. Installed for three months, the work utilized 100% recycled materials and was designed to welcome the community back to a section of beach previously closed due to high toxicity. The poles reflect our human tendency to map and monitor and the wind sensors remind us to look and feel. Howard worked with the Environmental Protection Agency and Bainbridge Island Arts and Humanities Council. The site was also a former creosote factory.
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At Ease, 2008-2011 (above), was a temporary public art project sited at Warren G. Magnuson Park in Seattle, Washington. Located at the primary threshold between the park and surrounding neighborhood, the work transformed a neglected, empty, and vandalized guard shack into a symbol of Magnuson’s military past, and transitional present, and the ongoing commitment to balance human wants and environmental needs. Howard used vinyl graphics and lit the structure from within. Project partners were Seattle Parks & Recreation, 4 Culture and Rainier Industries.
Working from audio archives at Ocean Alliance in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Howard created a compilation of signature hydrophone whale recordings from expeditions led by Dr. Roger Payne, its founder, along with colleagues dating back to 1967. Visitors entered the Ocean Alliance headquarters library, where the collection of reel-to-reels are archived, and the gallery where the artists’ sound works echoed through the space via a 4-channel speaker system while immersed in hanging textile scrolls (above), each printed with spectrogram imagery that visualize the recordings. The installation, titled Once Upon a Whale Song, was created in 2022.
A Gathering Storm, 2021 (below), included photography and photogravure, images of harbor defenses sited near the coastal waters of Puget Sound, Washington, along with field sound recordings. Fort Worden, Fort Casey, and Fort Flagler are just three of over seventy-five coastal forts that protect our harbors, cities, and waterways in the United States. Many of these emplacements are on the front lines of climate change, but were never designed to face this sort of surge. This work harnesses the power of sound to tell the little-known story of Coastal Defenses in the United States, their stalwart past, and present day vulnerabilities.
“The work evolves in series, sharing a common theme and employing a wide range of media; from painting and printmaking to drawing and collage. Subtle qualities of landscape are combined with symbols, maps, and icons to convey the complexity of real-world experience, relating to the ‘there-ness’ of everything.” perri lynch howard
Frequencies: Standing Watch, 2022 (below), is a painting from Howard's Frequencies’ series, which was inspired by extreme environments where sea meets shore and land meets sky. The work explores patterns of light and sound traveling over, under, and through the landscape, shaping our sense of place.
Perri Lynch Howard is an artist dedicated to forging new narratives from the front lines of climate change. Working in the context of extreme environments is an essential aspect of Ms. Howard’s practice, driving her curiosity to seek a deeper sense of place, beyond the dichotomy of near and far. Her artwork is a charting or mapping of sites and situations expressed through painting, drawing, sculpture and sound. Originally from Marblehead, Massachusetts, Howard received her BA from The Evergreen State College, BFA from the University of Washington, and MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her work is represented by the Seattle Art Museum Gallery. She has recently completed afield recording expedition to Svalbard in the Arctic Circle, investigating the impacts of anthropogenic marine noise on whales and arctic sea life. This work was funded by the McMillen Foundation. Her projects have received support from numerous residencies and fellowships including the Montello Foundation, Civita Institute, Willapa Bay AiR, PLAYA, Kingsbrae International Residency for the Arts, Jack Straw Artist Support Program, Centrum Foundation, and the Mamori Sound Project, among others. Howards’s art has a global reach through projects completed in Italy, Portugal, Brazil, Canada, and in South India as a Fulbright Scholar. www.perrilynchhoward.com
Featured Images (top to bottom): ©Perri Lynch Howard,Floating Datum: Fixed Grid, 2005, Spinnaker cloth, aluminum supports, PVC pipes, 10 x 60 x 60 feet, Pritchard Park, Brainbridge Island, Washington; At Ease, 2008, vinyl graphic on existing structure, lighting from within, commissioned by Seattle Parks & Recreation, located at Warren G. Magnuson Park, Seattle, Washington; Once Upon a Whale Song, 2022, textile scrolls and sound, installation at Ocean Alliance, Gloucester, Massachusetts; A Gathering Storm, 2021, photography, photogravure, and sound; Frequencies: Standing Watch, 2022, painting with sound, 48 x 30 inches; self portrait of the artist.
