A River Runs Through It
Creativity flows through the use of iron oxide found in local riverbeds.
Artists for Art and the Afa Gallery, in partnership with the Eastern Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation, has made creative use of the iron oxide pigment collected from local riverbeds. Supported by a grant through the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts-Scranton Area Foundation, seven area high school students worked with book artist Ivana Pavelka for five sessions at Keystone College and AFA Gallery and created accordion books using the pigment in their artwork. Robert Hughes, AML Program Manager of ECAMR, introduced the students to the reclamation and transformation process of the abandoned mine drainage and showed them how it becomes a pigment that is friendly and useful to artists. For the following art-making sessions, Ivana and the students explored the artistic uses of the pigment as well as the cultural and historical implications of the material itself.
Mixed media artist Elizabeth Parry-Faist worked with the students on including photographic images in their books, and poet Jennifer Hill-Kaucher helped them add meaningful text. The finished accordion books show the use of the pigment in mixed media, paint and ink and will be on display at the AFA Gallery on December 7th at 6 p.m. as part of Scranton’s First Friday Art Walk.