Jane Ingram Allen

Still Water
No Water
Every Drop Counts

Jane Ingram Allen and Marcia Widenor had a show at the Tenri Cultural Institute last May.

I especially like Jane's works. She uses handmade paper and wildflowers. She has had art residencies in Taiwan and Tanzania that have informed her work. And she incorporates ecological concerns into what she does.

On her website, she describes her work at the Tenri Gallery like this:

...One of the works "Still Water" was made during her recent artist in residency at Taipei National University of the Arts in collaboration with art students at the university. This installation is made up of 200 cast handmade paper water bottles with unique labels created by the students and arranged in a spiral configuration on the gallery walls recalling the trash vortex in the North Pacific and relating to problems of plastic trash in the world's oceans as well as the lack of pure drinking water.

Another installation titled "No Water" is made with handmade paper from plants of Africa created during Jane's January-February 2008 residency in Tanzania, Africa. This work refers to the lack of water in many parts of Africa and problems relating to global climate change. The installation "Falling Water" consists of 10 panels of handmade paper cascading from floor to ceiling. This paper pulp is colored with non-toxic dye and painted with Chinese ink and contains seeds for wildflowers.

Another installation in the exhibition is called "Every Drop Counts" and consists of many handmade paper drops arranged on the gallery wall like water drops on a window. The paper pulp contains seeds for wild flowers and visitors are invited to pledge to conserve water and then take a drop from this installation home with them to water and plant to grow as wildflowers. The installations in the exhibition of handmade paper with wildflowers seeds in the pulp will be recycled into the earth after the exhibition to come back as living blooming wildflowers.