DATE: Thursday, July 17, 1997               TAG: 9707170212

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  127 lines

STALKING SCULPTURETRACK DOWN 2 ARTISTS' WORKS AT THE CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER OF VIRGINIA AND AT NORFOLK BOTANICAL GARDEN.

LAST WEEK, Mara Scrupe's big project seemed as precarious as a house of cards. One big sneeze and it might all come tumbling down.

She spent day after day building persnickety stacks of firewood inside the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia. She was not planning for a hard winter in Virginia Beach. She was, in fact, creating sculpture from more than four cords worth of chopped wood.

Scrupe might have called it her house of cords. But she dubbed it ``Ice Storm,'' and it goes on view tonight at the center for a show called ``Sightings.'' The show is split between the center and Norfolk Botanical Garden.

Her piece at the center consists of tall wood stacks with icicle-like lights draped over them. She named it ``Ice Storm'' because the room-filling artwork was inspired by a wild winter storm she once endured on her central Virginia farm.

Scrupe and interim curator Neill Hughes worked side by side on the delicately balanced piece.

``Oh, Neill! Nice. Real nice. You just picked up that slack real well,'' she said as Hughes regained the balance on a nearly toppled stack by hammering a wedge into it.

Later, a big crash brought her running, asking, ``Which one went?'' It was one in the rear that had been waiting to be secured with steel cable. Calm as a farmer and without a complaint, she went back to stacking.

The exhibit includes two works by Scrupe and two by Baltimore artist Jann Rosen-Queralt. Each has one major piece set up indoors at the art center and another displayed outdoors at the garden.

The works are all site-specific installation art. Site-specific means the work was designed and created with a particular location in mind. Such works go beyond the perimeters of traditional pedestal sculpture or framed paintings. Whether a collection of objects set up in a room, garden or pond, the entire installation is considered a single artwork.

Guests at tonight's free public reception will preview Scrupe's ``Ice Storm'' and Rosen-Queralt's ``Cultivus Loci: Nimbus,'' a fountain sculpture that includes copper tubes miked to amplify the musical sounds of dripping water.

To see the other half of the show, folks must make the 20-minute drive to the garden.

There, Rosen-Queralt has transformed Friendship Pond into her version of the summer sky. Her creation resembles aquatic topiary - large balls of sponge and feathers held above the pond by copper tube supports. The balls were positioned to mirror the constellation Lyra as well as the summer sky's three brightest stars, a configuration known as the Summer Triangle, says John Beardsley, a respected art scholar who wrote the essay for ``Sightings.''

The garden was far from crowded in the steamy heat of Saturday afternoon, though it was cool enough in the shade. In fact, shaded benches were plentiful throughout the 155-acre spread.

Scrupe's three green mountain lions, recently installed in the holly garden, were barely visible to those who remained on the garden path.

For ``Sanctuary,'' as the piece is called, the artist sculpted life-scale lions and cast them in resin. A solar panel powers the neon installed in the hollow cats. Each day at dusk, the creatures appear to be lit from within for an hour.

The way Scrupe positioned them, the creatures seem engaged in natural behavior - warily emerging from the bushes and heading toward the nearby Renaissance Garden.

Why lions in the garden?

``There's an interesting dialogue that goes on about preservation in a place like a botanical garden or a zoo. In such places we ask questions about what we preserve and why,'' said the artist.

Mountain lions once roamed Virginia but retreated as humans claimed the land. Now they are an endangered species and mostly found in nature preserves. While fun to come across, Scrupe's lions also are poignant reminders of the original residents.

``I wanted the piece to be engaging on a number of levels,'' she said. ``And animals are interesting to people. And I thought a spring-green mountain lion would catch people's attention.

``Lit at night, it might be magical,'' she said.

The public will have about 20 minutes to witness this transformation, because the timer is set for 6:37 p.m. and the garden closes at 7 p.m.

Scrupe knew that from the start.

``The mountain lion is a notoriously shy creature. I wanted to make it a little more difficult to see it,'' she said. ``There's a level where I want people to have to try and see it.''

The way curator Hughes described his experience of the piece, it seemed naturally poetic: ``The diurnal humans leave and allow the nocturnal cats to come alive.''

The idea connects to his show concept.

``I call it `Sightings' because these are things that are not invisible, but are overlooked - until they're brought to a person's attention. You have to be nudged and focused. Then, all of a sudden, they become clear.''

Since the late 1980s, Scrupe's recurring theme has been to contrast the wild and the manmade, with an implied goal of balance.

In 1986, she and her husband moved from Minneapolis to a farm between Richmond and Charlottesville. Within three years, her art totally changed. Her work became very large and related to landscape.

She is particularly fascinated with domestic gardens, which symbolize for her ``the midpoint between culture and wild nature.''

Americans love to grow gardens and visit them partly because so many are descended from farmers, she said. A century ago, most Americans were farmers, she said. Now, only a small percentage work the land. Something in them craves to reconnect.

In her own reconnection, Scrupe found it tough at times. The ice storm of 1994 wreaked havoc on her life. Fifty trees on the couple's 35 acres fell from the weight of the ice, blocking entrance to the long driveway leading to their 18th century farmhouse. They lost electricity for more than a week.

``It was beautiful, but devastating,'' she recalled. She and her husband - once he arrived from Washington, D.C., where he works - spent days cutting up the downed trees with a gas-powered chain saw.

``We hauled and stacked wood - just like this,'' she said, indicating the gallery activity.

``It was an illuminating experience, no pun intended, to realize how much we are at the mercy of nature. And how we depend on such fragile technology.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

L. TODD SPENCER

Sculptor Mara Scrupe's works include...

Three mountain lions cast in resin...

Graphic

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