An innovative floating art exhibition set sail thanks to a Slippery Rock University professor and her students. SRU artists displayed their work at the Erie Yacht Club, Aug. 14, for an exhibit that wasn’t confined to frames or boxed off behind velvet ropes. Instead, these artworks were painted directly onto sail cloths, attached to working yachts, and sailed out on Presque Isle Bay in Erie as a floating art exhibit.
Heather Hertel, professor of art, spearheaded this endeavor. Hertel has been a sailor for many years and got the idea for this exhibition in 2015 while boat racing.
“I looked up on the sail and wondered, ‘Why haven’t I ever painted on sails before?’” Hertel said. “I’ve been painting on white canvas and cloth my whole life!”
The first question of the project was finding out which paint would stick to sail cloth. It was at this point that Hertel got students involved for what she called a “material investigation,” where the team tried several paints to see what would stick to scraps of sail cloth.
The team ultimately created nine large-scale paintings, all of which were painted onto usable, recycled J22 yacht sails. The purpose of the team painting on usable sails was to serve Hertel’s vision of moving paintings.
“I’m not a still person or a still artist,” Hertel said. “I love it when things change or move. It opens the mind, and it gives the audience something to think about. It’s opening. It’s expanding.”
The artists also benefitted from cross disciplinary study as Louis Christensen, SRU assistant professor of engineering, gave a presentation about the physics of sailboats. This presentation helped the sailmaking team ensure correct movement of their sails which not only helped them to function on the water, but also to ensure the paintings moved in a way that served the team’s vision.
“This was enormously ambitious, but sometimes that is good,” Hertel said. “We just had to put the time and dedication in and have the resourcefulness to get a team together. Teamwork makes the dream work, and we were a team.”
Hertel has high hopes for future installations of this exhibition. The audiences at the Erie Yacht Club expressed excitement for more sail cloth exhibitions, with several attendees asking Hertel if it would be an annual occurrence. According to Hertel, many viewers referred to the exhibition as “fantastic, wonderful and epic.”
“The goal is to have this show travel nationally to another yacht club or sailing club event, possibly the Annapolis boat show, which brings in thousands of people each year,” Hertel said. “My goal is for it to go to at least one place nationally, if not more.”
Hertel hopes that successful exhibition in Erie served as a real-world example of her teaching strategy to reach goals that are “SMART,” an acronym that stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based. This practice was a driving force behind all the team’s work over the past months, and Hertel hopes that this shows that, with a solid plan, big projects can be completed, and big challenges can be overcome.
“When you have a goal or a dream, you find a way,” Hertel said. “You make it happen.”
Sails from the exhibition will be on display in the SGA Student Art Gallery, located on the ground floor of the Strain Safety Building on SRU’s campus, through September for the community to see. The exhibition will not only include the sails themselves but also student produced photos and videos from their day on the water.
To support this project, Hertel secured a Faculty Research Grant of $5,000 through SRU and a Faculty Development Council grant of $10,000 through Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education. These grants allowed the students to be paid for their hours of work. The remainder of the grants — as well as donations of Hertel’s own materials — covered supplies for the project and allowed the team to officially begin creating the pieces that would eventually sail at the Erie Yacht Club.
Hertel gives enormous credit to everyone who helped to make this ambitious project happen. She had a team of 13 students with some serving as painters while others served as painters and photographers. She also gave significant recognition to SRU alumnus Russ Thompson, ’83, who is the current Commodore of the Erie Yacht Club for his support of this exhibition, the club’s Women on the Water for serving as sailors, Beau Seibel for his sail-making demonstration, and Karen Niemic of the Reyburn Sailing School.
More information about the art programs at SRU is available on the department’s webpage.
