Bonnie Zimmer is a lifelong artist, teacher, arts activist, and resident of northwest Indiana.
Q1: What is your earliest memory of interacting with nature?
Growing up in northern rural Jasper County, I remember playing outdoors for hours on end with my younger sister, Lana. We played extensively in the pine grove near our family farmhouse, raking the pine needles into elaborate floor plans. We were free to roam the woods and pastures, or wade in the nearby shallow ditch. So, from my earliest years, probably 6 years old or so, I was always immersed in nature and the outdoors.
Q2: How does the natural world influence your work as an artist?
Little did I know that those early experiences in nature, literally playing with sticks, rocks, pine needles, flowers, pods, and more would deeply imprint on my artistic sensibilities, informing and influencing the eventual organic direction of my art work from my earliest college art courses to the present day. I earned a BFA in textiles at Indiana University in 1973, and even in my very first weaving course, my final major project was a woven wall hanging of a unique organic landscape. It was hung from a thick branch split lengthwise on a band saw and glued around the top of the weaving. So, it seems I have always been compelled to use materials and forms from nature. I attribute my love of working with natural and salvaged materials to those tactile and sensory experiences of my earliest years spent in nature.
Q3: What role do you think artists have in helping to promote or protect nature and the environment?
I think artists can play an integral role in helping shape our viewers' perceptions and perhaps their actions. As a retired art educator, my work always includes an educational component through the materials with which I work. In addition to technical and conceptual challenges I set for myself, I selectively combine natural materials and salvaged materials intended, in part, to call attention to our over consumption/throw-away culture. I "re-present" objects that have been discarded or abandoned, with locally harvested, often overlooked, natural materials. In each work I strive ultimately to create a perfect visual balance. Most broadly, the visual harmony in my work is intended as a visual metaphor for the "possibility" that humans might once again live in harmony with nature.
Q4: What message do you hope people take with them from your piece(s) in the Human/Nature exhibition?
I am exhibiting two special pieces from a series of five works I created in 2018 for my solo exhibition at the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette last fall. Entitled "LEGACIES", every sculpture and installation in the exhibit was created from materials I "inherited" from family, friends or NATURE. We were building an addition on our farmhouse and had to remove a number of trees. I thought of these trees as having stood guard over our home for decades, watching over our family. I was stunned at the unique and natural beauty of the bark and root systems of the mulberry and black walnut trees. Working spontaneously with the bark and roots, I allowed the materials to guide my structures. When completed, they each took on a persona, so I entitled them as such and called them my "Guardian Series". I wanted to honor both the trees now gone and the beauty of nature through my unique structures. I hope my viewers will have a fresh view on ways to honor, utilize, and more fully appreciate nature.
Bonnie's work Guardian Series: Young Mother and Guardian Series: Crazy Brother is showing at the Human/Nature exhibition. The photo shown is of the artist with another piece from the same series, Guardian Series: Fancy Elder. More information on the exhibition can be found here.
Find out more: bonniezimmer.com