A Conversation with artists Meg Holgate and Steve Klein
Image: MoNA Galleries (A Precarious Edge Exhibition). Photo by Stefano Catalani
Stefano Catalani: A Precarious Edge opened at the Museum of Northwest Art last Saturday, February 26. The exhibition is poignant and timely: one can sense the disquiet and ferment, care and hope for the natural world. When did the idea of collaborating first start, and how did the exhibition's theme take shape?
Meg Holgate: The concept for A Precarious Edge was developed in the summer of 2019. Steve and I grew this exhibition out of a mutual desire to communicate an urgent message through our work. I had seen Steve's recent work and was moved by the strong pictorial content. There was a deep appreciation for each other's artistic expressions, so the idea of collaboration evolved naturally. We began to share articles and data. We knew we needed to make this show.
Steve Klein: I had just finished making an installation piece for the Bellevue Arts Museum which spoke to my feelings about corporate incursion, greed, and negligence, all affecting the environment. Even though the idea of collaboration was born before the title and theme of the exhibition, we were fairly adamant that the work would address beauty first and use it to—hopefully—get the viewers to think about what is behind that beauty and what threatens it.
Image: Artists Steve Klein and Meg Holgate. Photo by CB Bell
SC: Looking back at your artistic practice and production, do you see a specific moment when the environmental crisis entered your work?
SK: Moving to the Northwest in 2006 gave me a much greater appreciation of nature. The more time I spent here, the more I needed nature to be a part of my daily life. Soon, I started to reflect on the dangers that threaten what I had grown to love and need, and I started to worry that my grandchildren and future generations would not be able to enjoy the wonders of nature now so necessary in my life.
MH: In 2008, I had the opportunity to listen to environmental activist David Suzuki speak on human impact to our natural habitats. As he engaged us from the podium on Quadra Island, BC, I remember looking out the window at the pristine waters of Hyacinthe Bay. The alarming information he was sharing with us that evening was in direct conflict with the beauty in front of me. The next day, I read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring about pesticides harming the environment. From that moment on, I began to wake up to the reality that our human imprint was taking a large toll on the planet. As the years rolled on, I found myself engaged in more conversations about the consequences of our decisions. I began to notice my world with new eyes: Time spent in Alaska, drifting alongside icebergs while watching large chunks of ice calving into the frozen waters, was both captivating and unnerving. Walking along forest trails, only to suddenly come upon an area that had been so brutally logged, was painful.
SC: Could you speak of the collaboration vis-à-vis the development of the exhibition?
SK: I think it's important to note that during the two years that we worked individually on the pieces for the exhibition, we communicated regularly, visited each other's studio, and shared research and information. From the onset, we agreed on topics such as icebergs, oceans, forests, and air. Our collaborative process focused more on these groups than on individual pieces. As it turned out, our work came together very well and, while speaking to similar ideas the work is very much individual thoughts, and I think it creates an interesting dialogue. The concept of a precarious edge was always the focus of our conversations. Trusting each other and believing in each other's work was always a constant. In my mind, there was never any doubt as to our ability to make an important statement through beauty. I think there is a very good balance between Meg's calm, poetic, more conceptual paintings and my harder, more pointed, and narrative sculptures.
MH: Conversations with Steve helped to inform the direction I would take with my work. I began painting large-scale icebergs as Steve delved into making the large glass installation Forest. While he was working on Forest, I considered how the trees might tell their stories: Tree Rings became proxies for a window into climate change. Overall, by agreeing on certain aspects of climate change, we found a map that would lead us through a labyrinth of information.
Image: Steve Klein, “Forest,” 2021, kiln formed glass. Photo by CB Bell
Image: Meg Holgate, “Tree Ring 1,” 2021,” mixed media on paper. Photo by Brenda Brito Espinosa
SC: Meg, could you speak of Breathtaking Views? I find Breathtaking to be such a suggestive choice of words as it can be interpreted both as astonishing and magnificent or as suffocating, literally breath taking?
MH: The inspiration for Breathtaking Views came flying across the country in 2019. I became entranced by a certain quality of light emanating from a town in New Jersey. It was quite beautiful until I realized that I was gazing at a blanket of smog. This was a moment when my breath was taken away, when my vision was altered.
Image: Meg Holgate, “Breathtaking Views,” 2021, oil on canvas. Photo by CB Bell
SC: Steve, as the visitors enter the galleries, they encounter Glacier, an installation comprised of 8 kiln-formed glass panels each labeled after a decade: 1950, 1960, 1970, and so on till 2020.
SK: I researched each of the themes of our exhibit to get more of a background in the dangers we face. In looking at images, I was completely taken by the beauty of icebergs and glaciers, the drama of the large masses, and the astounding colors. But glaciers are disappearing at an alarming rate. Glacier is a piece about the beauty and the disappearance of glaciers, decade after decade. In making the work, the texture became very important to me as a way of expressing the beauty of ice. I knew that texture would also interact with light to hopefully give the viewer a more three-dimensional impression. As always, in the creative process, the end directs the means, and honestly, part of what I enjoy about working with glass are the challenges of coercing the material and process to express my thoughts and intent.
Image: Steve Klein, “Glacier,” 2022. Photo by CB Bell
SC: The exhibition stages an ongoing conversation between your pieces: in each gallery, one can sense the exchange. However, one particular dialog caught my eye, and that is the one between Ocean [Steve Klein's sculpture] and Net [Meg Holgate's painting]. Can you speak of this synergy?
Image: Steve Klein, “Ocean,” 2022, kiln formed glass. Photo by Brenda Brito Espinosa
Image: Meg Holgate, “Net,” 2015, mixed media on canvas. Photo by CB Bell
MH: We should all be concerned with how we are extracting natural resources and what we are leaving in its place. The painting Net is a foretelling: a loss of bounty. The net is empty, ghostly. Steve's Ocean brings forcefully and painfully into sight the plastic pollution of the oceans. Together we acknowledge we are leaving behind a layer of waste that nature cannot absorb.
SK: When we talked about the ocean, nets naturally became a topic in our conversations, how nets are used in so many legal, illegal, responsible, and irresponsible ways. I'm taken with the way Meg painted her piece: there is magic in the movement and drama she was able to capture. Ocean—the floor installation—is made of glass, mirror, and trash: trash can be seen through the cerulean glass and also sitting on it. There is beauty and defacement.
SC: Since we opened, more than one visitor felt compelled to collect the trash sitting on the glass.
SK: The Museum should put up a sign that states: Thank you for your consideration in wanting to remove the trash. In this case, please don't. If you want to help our oceans, more trash can be found on any beach.
SC: An exhibition is always a point of departure rather than a point of arrival: what is your hope for those who come to see the show?
SK: I hope that viewers will realize how nature and the environment affect their lives as well as the lives of others. I hope they will appreciate the beauty of nature but also realize that beneath that beauty, there are man-induced changes threatening the future of the natural cycles and elements that sustain life on earth. It is my hope that children will ask questions and that parents and adults will listen and seek ways in which they can contribute to saving the environment. I hope that pessimism, acceptance, and complacency will be replaced with optimism and action.
MH: My hope is that the viewer will experience the work much like the artist. Through meaning. We live in a highly mediated world where there is a great deal of information related to the effects of human impact on our planet. My intention is to create a space for contemplation. I believe in human potential, innovation, and the infinite possibilities of our species. I hope that the exhibition will bring about a reflective feeling that empowers personal decision-making for the renewal and re-wilding of our planet. The technology and science available to us now will lead the way towards myriad solutions. With our collective will, patience and knowledge, we can make the course corrections necessary for a new planet. We have targeted the year 2050 for net-zero carbon emissions. The year is not an Orwellian science fiction notion, but it may be a marker.
Image: Meg Holgate, “Cryosphere,” 2022, mixed media on canvas. Photo by Brenda Brito Espinosa
SC: Glancing back at what brought us to this precarious edge and looking forward to the natural world and our human nature, what are your feelings?
MH: I believe when we lose our connection to the natural world, we lose connection to ourselves. For me, the main function of art is to find the truth and create meaning from it. Before I could create the work for this exhibition, I needed to build a new relationship with nature. Aware that I wanted to address a disappearing world, I recognized that the information I was paying attention to would significantly shape my work. I had moments of insight and sparks of anxiety. I was empowered one minute and divided the next. I asked myself to name it and examine it, and I did so to the best of my ability, within my own limited capacity. As a witness to a world evolving and dissolving, I have chosen recognizable themes in our climate change story: melting icebergs, tree proxies, landscapes blanketed in smog and smoke, and waters turned red from harmful algae blooms and heatwaves. Developments in artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology can help, as an example, track and trace migrations and predict future issues with a depth of knowledge that has not been available until now. I believe that the gathering of information supported by science and technology will help pave the way to a healthier planet. We are in the age of the Anthropocene, our current geological age, in which we are shaping and impacting our planet earth in unprecedented ways. In a time of construction and deconstruction, the exhibition is geared to ask the question: what will we do? The simplest way to predict the future is to create it yourself.
SK: I feel concern and hope. Optimism that this generation will overcome the excesses that have led us to this dangerous point and set an example for future generations.
SC: Thank you both for your work and your commitment.