Last February, we published an update on the Art Migration from Oakland to a rain forest reserve in Minas Gerias, Brazil. AmSteel artist Karen Cusolito recently returned from finishing up the installation, and is excited to start all over again!
During the installation, a group of students from the local school came for a visit to the 8,000 hectare reserve to see the heavy equipment and the giant sculptures, learn about the process of welding and the power of working together. Each of the students was invited to take a piece of steel from Karen’s inventory of “spare parts,” and consider how he or she would turn it into art. Karen then suggested that if they were to put all of their pieces together they could build an even bigger sculpture. The students worked with putting all the pieces together, and several arrangements, designing the most dynamic sculpture they could muster.
Miss Margaret Long accompanied Karen on the installation and was very happy to learn that crane signals are universal! Many local hands were also involved in the installation; pouring concrete pads, designing and setting up lightning rods, drilling anchors and moving and leveling the earth. It does in fact rain in the rain forest, so when Mother Nature decided to have a shower, the heavy equipment sat still and Karen and Margaret got to go for a hike and look for monkeys and toucans.
Plans are underway for Karen to return in the spring to build a new piece on the Reserve, creating opportunities for local kids and adults to learn how to design and fabricate a sculpture of their own. The focus of the piece is to bring awareness to the endangered Miriqui monkey and the continued preservation and replanting of the forest. Karen will be spending the next several months learning to speak Portuguese while working on designs and building models.