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Touch the Earth - Inspiration | A Natural State - Episode 4

Kaltura

Ernie Denny's vision of a nature-based sculpture program was inspired by a dream about children playing inside a giant bronze flower. The program's "gallery" would be nestled amid rolling hills of the Blue Ridge and its artwork would rouse "something experienced" instead of passively observed. The viewer would need no background to understand the art work, only to explore, to study, to use their senses and to share in the mysterious process of its creation, evolution and decay. The result of Ernie's vision can now be experienced at the South Carolina Botanical Garden in Clemson, South Carolina

More in this Series

Natural State / Blue Ridge | A Natural State / Clemson Nature-Based Art

 Spotlight 1

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Spotlight
Episode 1
Clemson's Nature-Based Sculpture Program reinvents the art gallery as an outdoor experience where the sculptor's hand is revealed through exploration and discovery. There are no signs to lead visitors...
Touch the Earth - Artforms & Materials | A Natural State
   - Episode 6 Collaboration 2

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Collaboration
Episode 2
The Nature-based sculpture program is a collaborative project between artists, and students and teachers from a broad range of university studies. Horticulture, landscape architecture, English...
 Landscape Architecture Professor | A Natural State 3

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Landscape Architecture Professor | A Natural State
Episode 3
How do you define nature when its definition has changed through the centuries? The definition and idea of "art," "nature"and "natural" are difficult terms to pin down. Technology and our evolving...
 Touch the Earth 5

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Touch the Earth
Episode 5
The nature-based art form blends natural materials, manmade construction and landscape into mysterious expressions of our relationship to the earth. The Serpent Mound in Ohio attributed to the Adena...
Spotlight - Clemson's Nature-Based Art | A Natural State
   - Episode 1 Touch the Earth 6

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Touch the Earth
Episode 6
Several art forms and concepts are experienced through the nature-based sculpture program: Experiential: "Allowing the viewer to experience the sculpture by entering its space allows the viewer to...
 Touch the Earth 7

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Touch the Earth
Episode 7
Artworks in the nature-based sculpture program are categorized as "ephemeral" and "extended ephemeral." Ephemeral work has a relatively short life span. Works like Patrick Daugherty's Sittin' Pretty...